The Midwife's Choice Read Free

right. Everything is going to be all right.”
    While Russell tried to comfort his wife, Martha worked gently, but firmly, to remove the cord that was wrapped not once, but twice, around the boy’s tiny neck. She blinked back tears. In the midst of tragedy, Martha had found a blessing. This baby would have been strangled to death during birth, whether that was now or later. She offered a prayer of thanksgiving that this fact would help to relieve any guilt Nancy might bear for the fall that hastened her son’s entrance into this world.
    Martha massaged his little body and prayed she could bring life back to his form, if only to have his mother hear him cry. Just once. To give them a few moments of life to share together—moments that would have to last Nancy a lifetime.
    But to no avail.
    She held his lifeless body, so very small, yet so perfectly formed, in the palm of her hand. “Your sweet little angel boy has already gone Home,” she whispered before wrapping him in the towel and placing him in his mother’s trembling arms. Choking back her own sobs, she prayed as she delivered the afterbirth. For Nancy. For Russell. And for their little angel son.
    Profound sadness enveloped her spirit, and she struggled to embrace this little one’s loss as his mother wept. In nearly tenyears of practice, she had lost only four babies to stillbirth, and each still lived vividly in her memory. Still, nothing could ever prepare her for this experience, and she tried with all her might to accept this baby’s death as an opportunity for all of them to receive even greater blessings.
    Later, she would record today’s tragedy in her diary and pray it would be a very long time before she had to do it again.
    â€œI’m sorry, Russell. I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault. Please forgive me. Please.”
    Startled by Nancy’s plea, Martha looked up. Nancy cradled her dead child against her bosom with her deformed hand. She began crying uncontrollably, but it was Russell who garnered all of Martha’s attention.
    With his lips pressed together in a firm line, he held his body stiff. His gaze was hard and unforgiving. Instead of answering his wife, instead of reassuring her that he did not blame her for this accident of nature, he eased her from his lap, stood up, and handed her over to Martha.
    â€œI have a grave to dig,” he mumbled and quickly left the room without ever holding his son or offering a single word of comfort to his wife.
    Stunned, Martha embraced the young woman. With the tiny boy’s body pressed between them, they wept together. Childbearing was indeed a woman’s lot, her cross as well as her greatest blessing, creating bonds of sisterhood between all women—bonds most men could scarcely begin to understand. Memories of her own two babies, now resting next to their father in the cemetery, still ran deep.
    For many men like Russell, the shock of losing a babe unleashed emotions they would bury deep in their hearts and hide from the world, but in time, she prayed, Russell and Nancy would be able to grieve together, accept their loss as God’s will, and forgive the accident that had led to this early, tragic birth.
    Nancy was far from home and family, with no mother to console her, no familiar friends or neighbors to help her. For now, Martha would have to be the anchor that held Nancy and her faith steady. “Give a good cry, sweet Nancy. You are not alone. You are never alone,” she crooned. “I’m so sorry, so very sorry.”
    Later, there would be time to offer hope, to speak of the children Nancy would someday carry and welcome into the world with great joy and celebration, but now was not that time. Although this baby had never drawn a single breath or suckled at his mother’s breast, to his mother, he had been real. He had been her baby for many months—months filled with dreams that now would never be fulfilled.
    Now was a