The Amish Midwife by Mindy Starns Clark, Leslie Gould Page A

chin that jutted out.
    Tonya began to sob again.
    Her mother leaned over and kissed her forehead. “What’s the matter?”
    Tonya’s body convulsed, and her face quivered.
    Tammy perched on the bed, the baby still tucked in her arm like a football. Tonya reached out and stroked the infant’s curled fist.
    “It’s hard,” Tammy said. “I know.”
    “You
don’t
know.” Another sob racked her. “You got to keep me.”
    “I was older.” Tammy wiggled closer to her daughter. “Done with school. I had a job. And insurance.” Tammy’s voice was low.
    Tonya reached out for the baby.
    “Sweetie,” Tammy said.
    “Please?”
    Tammy’s face contorted as she stood. The baby began to whimper.
    “Mom,” Tonya pled.
    Now the baby was crying that traumatized newborn wail. “Shhh.” Tammy bounced the baby, but the cry grew louder.
    Tonya was sitting up now, reaching for her child, and then Tammy was sliding her into her mother’s arms. “I can’t go through with it,” Tonya whispered, sinking back down onto the bed and pulling the baby to her chest.
    Tammy nodded. “I’ll call the lawyer in the morning.” She didn’t seem surprised as she collapsed on the bed beside her daughter and now silent granddaughter. They stayed that way for a while, and then Tammy said, “You should nurse though, if you’re going to keep her.”
    Tonya nodded. I slipped out the door, dabbing at my eyes. I knew of other midwives and doctors who would have intervened. They would have at least asked Tammy if they had the resources and support they needed. I would flag Tonya’s chart for a social worker to stop in and see her, but I wasn’t going to get in the middle of it. Tammy seemed to know what she was doing. She knew what it took to raise a child. And she couldn’t be more than forty herself. She was perfectly capable of raising another baby. No, I wouldn’t get involved in this one. It hit too close to home.
    I stepped into Jane’s room, forcing myself not to think about the couple who was waiting, somewhere, hoping for that beautiful baby girl, having no idea of the heartbreaking phone call coming their way.
    At 5:23 a.m. Jane delivered her eight-pound boy. By 7:15 she was tucked into bed, ready to sleep with baby Jefferson beside her and her husband hunched on the little window seat, already snoring. The gray morning sun streamed through the leaves of the trees outside the window. I turned the blinds shut. “Give Jackson a kiss for me when he comes to meet his brother,” I said as I patted Jane’s foot.
    She nodded and smiled. “Thank you,” she whispered.
    “My pleasure,” I said. And it was.
Baby number 246
. It had been a perfect night.
    As I slipped into the hall, I decided to peek in on Tonya one last time. A woman, obviously a maternal aunt by how much she looked like Tammy, held the baby. Tonya slept, her mouth slightly open, on the bed.
    “Have you had any rest?” I asked Tammy.
    She shook her head. “I will later.” She turned toward me. “Does this happen very often? That a girl changes her mind about giving up her baby?”
    “It happens.”
    “Do you think I should have discouraged her?”
    I shrugged. “I don’t think there’s any right answer. I think it’s entirely up to you.” I touched the baby’s cheek. I suddenly had the urge to tell Tammy that I was adopted, that I had a grandmother who had onceloved me that I never knew. But I didn’t. Instead, I handed her my card and asked that she email me a photo of the baby when she got the chance.
    “You bet I will,” she said.
    Kin
was the word that came to mind when I stepped out of the room. It was such an old-fashioned word. I remember Mama talking about her relatives who lived in Kansas and saying, “My kin…” I’d looked the word up in the dictionary a few months after she died and found “persons of common ancestry.”
    I was kinless.
    The next day I applied for a Pennsylvania nursing license and emailed requests for information