The following is a written narrative of my personal experiences. Let the reader understand that the opinions, feelings and thoughts expressed, like my memory, are all flawed. This written account is for entertainment purposes only, it is not intended to cast a negative light on any person or institution, particularly Monadnock Community Hospital which is a top notch, caring, community hospital. This organization (in my humble opinion) is second only to the home birth option for delivering babies in The Monadnock Region.
Introduction
I started out as an unwilling participant in many of the parenting choices my wife and I now champion. She is the intellectual, I am the sports fan. She is the reader, I am the movie buff. She worked for her tuition, mine was a gift. She collects piles of paper and I collect everything else.
A memorable illustration of our differences was demonstrated the first time she came to my apartment when we were checking out each other. She walked over to my bookcase and said, "I love bookshelves — you can learn a lot about people by the books they own". Moments later, she exclaimed in outrage and disappointment, "Hey, these are all college textbooks!"
That was me. The naive college graduate who didn't own a single book beyond the textbooks I had been required to buy. In my defense, it WAS 1991 and the internet was nothing like it is today, so it was reasonable to assume I might need to refer back to those texts someday.
Right after graduation, I secured a position with Southwestern Community Services as manager of the Keene Shelter for Homeless Families. It was the perfect gig for a single guy because it provided me with a small bi-weekly stipend and a free apartment including heat and electric. I was only required to be there between 5 and 7 PM. This was when new clients, referred by Keene City Welfare or The Saint Vincent De Paul Society, would show up for orientation and room assignments.
The free apartment was attached to the shelter. Outside of maintaining a safe and clean environment, and attendance at a monthly board meeting, there were no other expectations in the job description. I was free to pursue full/part time employment, or any other interests, outside of those minimal obligations. In retrospect, like most twenty-two-year-old single men in America, I didn't appreciate just how great my situation was. I was debt free, had no rent to pay, didn't need a car (though I had one) and even had excellent Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance; a benefit that came with a full-time job I picked up at The Woodward Home, a retirement community.
The money I made as the maintenance man at the retirement home came with a free hot lunch AND the gratitude of the sweetest demographic outside of babies and toddlers. Seriously, if you ever need to feel appreciated, get a job working as a maintenance man in an “old folks' home.” I would do the simplest thing, and by the accolades and thanks with which they would shower me, you would have thought I had saved them from a fate worse than death! It was the most gratifying position I have had in 30+ working years.
When I wasn't working, I could be found volunteering at the Samaritans Suicide Prevention Hotline, The Keene Community Kitchen, or enjoying some fun activity with my 8-year-old "little brother." Robert was “matched” to me by The Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Monadnock Region. Between the love I was getting at the nursing home and all the love I was giving through my volunteer work, you would be safe in assuming I was one happy dude.
To make matters even better, the bi-weekly stipend I got from Southwestern Community Services, when added to my pay at the retirement home, gave me more money than I could spend. Yes, today I find myself asking “WHY DIDN'T YOU RIDE THAT PONY LONGER?”
If you're a few years into a REAL adult existence, you can probably guess the answer to that question. If not, I will give you a clue, it was the one thing missing from my perfect utopia.
We've established that I didn't own a single book intended for pleasure reading. In fact, the only reading I had done in my whole life had been required reading. I had no idea what the “Bookcase Inspector” had hoped to find, or even what she was talking about, frankly, but I liked her pretty blue eyes, porcelain skin, long blond hair, big smile and curvy physique. Yep, the answer to that big WHY question I often ask myself is simple. I had became very attached to Blondie and wanted to put a ring on her finger before she got away. Considering the competition, I ruled out the idea of the asking her, "Will you marry me and live in a homeless shelter?"
Within a few months I had moved on from the shelter, was married and working as a sales professional at PC Connection. The changes she would create in me started gently enough. I came home the day after the bookshelf inspection to find a small paperback book on my doorstep with a note from her that said, "Here's a really good book". The dog-eared book was penned by Sydney Hopkins under the pseudonym "Fynn." Mr God, This is Anna didn't look like it would be too hard to read, and since she had insulted my book collection, I decided I would read it: if for no other reason than it might get me to first base with this hottie.
I think I read it at least twice over the past 30 years and, from what I can remember, it is a book that no one should miss. Anna is a sweet little homeless four-year-old girl who knows God personally and embarks on a mission to teach her 19-year-old "protector," Fynn, all about Him. In the process, the reader gains some special spiritual insight. Insight that only a child, whom Jesus told us we all must be like, could teach.
Setting the Stage
Fast forward about five years and you will find us showing up at The Monadnock Community Hospital around 7 PM on December 7th, 1996 in labor with our first child. This was about our third trip to the hospital due to Braxton Hicks contractions, effacement of her cervix, and a nervous husband. With a bit of coaching from our midwife, we finally succeeded in calming long enough to successfully spend the whole day of December 7th, tucked away in our little apartment, timing contractions, and nesting. In fact, were it not for a looming snow storm rolling in from the west, we likely would have stayed home until the 8th. However, because we had a twenty-mile trip to the hospital straight over Temple Mountain, with growing concern, I insisted that we leave before she was "ready."
We walked into a virtually empty maternity ward because most of the new parents had been sent home. They did not want these folks to be stranded in the hospital due to the storm. The "poking and prodding" began almost immediately as the nurse on duty proceeded to "check" my wife's progress. We were delighted to learn that she was already seven centimeters dilated. Only three more to go! Then they hooked up a monitor so they could check the baby's vitals and before we heard a heartbeat, her contractions came to a screeching halt. We decided to shut off the lights and try to get some sleep, feeling a sense of comfort that we were safely in our room at the hospital while the heavy snow fell outside.
We tossed and turned all night, too excited and tormented by the interruptions to get any sleep. We finally gave up trying as contractions returned with the sunrise, along with the arrival of our dear midwife. Both of us felt assured upon seeing her smiling face but the first thing she did was "check" again, STILL only seven centimeters? We didn't know it yet but the clock would soon start ticking. I was too green to realize that my wife immediately felt a pressure to perform when the chief OBGYN appeared and announced, with authority, that he would take over if necessary.
They brought us breakfast and suggested that some walking might help move things along. Had I known then what I know now, I would have told them we were going out for breakfast and would come back later (the snow had stopped and the plows were pretty much done). Alas, in my ignorance, I dutifully took my wife's hand and started waking the halls….. all day….with intermittent, very weak, contractions slowing us down every so often.
Around 3 PM, "Dr. Knife," a name we have come to use when remembering the chief OBGYN, started to hover. He was obviously growing impatient with my wife's slow labor and made sure she knew it. We could both sense the tension between our midwife and Dr. Knife but it quickly became clear that she was his subordinate because he told my wife that "she was going to have this baby today...either my way or her way. Anything natural is going to be over soon if you don’t move things along." The midwife’s subtle suggestion that we consider a pitocin induction turned into imploring at that point. I knew my wife was vehemently opposed to a C-section so I joined in the urgent pleading until my wife finally acquiesced.
Twenty minutes later my poor wife was being ripped open by overwhelming, chemically induced, contractions that reminded me of waves crashing against rocks in a storm. I was facing her, holding her hands in mine, when I looked down and saw that she was squeezing so hard that my thumbs had turned white. It didn't hurt. I was amused by her strength and said, “Honey, look at my thumbs!” She retorted, in the middle of a seemingly endless contraction, with the voice of Satan himself, "Small Price to Pay!"
Mercifully, the pitocin brought the desired result and we were holding our healthy baby, Asher, in our arms moments later with no epidural and no knife necessary. We took him home the next day once I figured out how to put the darn car seat in, somewhat disillusioned but wiser for wear. Never again would we turn ourselves or our kids over to the "white coats" like sheep to the slaughter. We were adults and our bodies were ours to listen to and protect. My wife was doing a fantastic job bringing Asher into the world and it wasn't until we got to the hospital and allowed them to start treating her like she was a sick patient that her labor shut down. I didn't know it then, but my wife had already decided that we were going to investigate home birth options for the next one.
Hillsborough, New Hampshire
I was born in December, and it has been something I have hoped to capitalize on since understanding the tax advantage that a December birthday delivers to the head of the household. We succeeded once with Asher (probably because with no kids, it was easier to orchestrate our plans) but, he is the only December baby we've been able to pull off thus far. We almost succeeded again with our youngest. Shalom, our 4-year-old daughter, was due on New Year's Eve (my birthday) but she didn't show up until January 8th! Since everything about her is absolutely perfect and precious, the fact that she cost me the tax write off in 2013 is absolutely forgivable. Besides, the Red Sox won the World Series that year so how can I complain?
Ruthie, Samuel, and Eliyah were all summer babies. Ruthie, our second-born and first of three daughters would have likely been a December baby because we were ready to start trying about eight months sooner than we actually did. Why did we wait eight months longer than we wanted to? I'm almost embarrassed to admit it now, but for those of you who were around in 1999, I suspect you might be willing to cut me some slack. Remember all the Y2K hype? I know, I know, it seems really silly now but I was a new father and a lot younger then. The thought of having a baby as the Y2K bug brought the world to an end was a regret I did not want to have. I could just hear friends and family scoffing, "What were you thinking?" or "You should have planned ahead! We all knew the power grid was going to go down at midnight 1/1/2000!" It wasn't until we got closer to the end of 1999 that cooler heads prevailed and we threw caution to the wind.
Shortly after Asher was born I made the big move into copier sales. I did this because I couldn't sing or dance, and I wanted to replace my wife's income so that she could be a full time mom. It was February 1997, when I left the relatively secure, middle-level management position, I held with Oxford Health Plans where I was making about $34,000 a year. We had decided that my wife would not be returning to her position at Transparent Language, the software company where she had been employed, so I needed to make roughly $60,000 in 1997 if we were to land on our feet.
It was so scary because the compensation plan at Flanagan’s Office Solutions was 100 percent commission with a monthly draw. That meant we received a $700 check twice a month and at the end of the month we “squared up.” Ideally I would receive a large commission check, less the $1,400 "draw" I had already received at the end of every month. If I didn't “cover” the draw, we entered the next month “in the red.” It was always my worst fear that I might enter a new month owing the company whatever I was short from the previous month. Thinking back on it now, since I had never done outside sales before, I really demonstrated a lot of faith making that move. The only reassurances I had were the testimony of a friend who had worked at Flanagan’s for about 9 months and the word of her boss John, who had been there for about 8 years. John offered me a confident explanation of the success he had enjoyed while managing the same territory I was being assigned to. I remember my friend, Chis, saying, “Just make the calls, be yourself and you will do great!”
The opportunity was not completely "sink or swim" because they did offer a modified compensation plan for trainees during the first year. While in training, you could count on a $29,000 base salary and there was a company car included. The company car was estimated to be worth about $5,000 a year when you considered the savings on car payments, insurance, maintenance and repairs. If I had been single with no kids, or had more modest goals, it would have been a safer move. I would have had nothing to lose because the value of the company care virtually eliminated the difference in my new base salary.
The harsh reality, in my situation, meant that failure would send my son to daycare, my wife back into the workforce, and me out looking for a new middle-level management position somewhere else with no car! I honestly can’t believe I took that leap as I write about it all these years later.
It is significant to mention that while on the trainee compensation plan, I could still earn commissions. However, they were adjusted down because of the salary. Without this additional earnings potential, the move to Flanagan’s would not have presented the opportunity to replace my wife’s income in that first year. The commission percentage was 10 percent of the gross profit from every sale. After the first year, when the salary went away, the compensation increased to 35 percent of the gross profit, for machines that were sold to current customers (upgrades of equipment we already had under contract), and 50 percent for any “net new” placements (machines that were either additional placements at current customer locations or brand new customers who had never done business with us before).
The training salary and company car meant that I was guaranteed to maintain the same level of income I had been earning for at least the first year. I just needed to sell enough equipment at the reduced commission percentage to replace my wife's $29,000 salary from Transparent Language and we would be okay.
Things went really well. I was helped tremendously by the fact that my boss had managed my territory for about 8 years and maintained many solid relationships. He taught me what to do as I overcame my fear of cold calling and built my own relationships. I remember my good friend James, a Boston firefighter, thought I was crazy for making the move into sales with a new baby at home. He told me a horror story about a Kirby Vacuum cleaner salesman breaking down in his living room and crying “Please man, I got a family to feed!” Nevertheless, I just kept doing what they told me to do and God blessed my efforts. By late spring, I was tracking to make about $50,000 in 1997 and with the company car and savings we were enjoying by having a full time homemaker, it looked like things were going to be just fine and dandy!
Suddenly, my wife decided it was time to get our own house! I was too busy cutting my teeth in this new career to even think about such things but she was the one home all day, living with a resentful single mom in the apartment above ours. Our neighbor wasn't an evil person but for some reason, after two friendly years, she decided that she didn't like us anymore. She started slamming doors and stomping around over our heads. This resulted in the frequent waking of a sleeping baby. Asher was colicky, so waking him up after he finally got to sleep was the unpardonable sin. One morning, I thought I was going to have to break up a physical confrontation between the single mom and my mama bear.
To my wife's credit she got all of our ducks in a row by herself. She worked to get us approved for a mortgage and even started finding houses in which the mortgage would be just a little more than the rent we were paying. It wasn't until she told me that the mortgage broker had explained we would have to close before my training salary went away, that I got a little concerned. It turned out that approval was based on a salary that the bank would have no way of knowing was a temporary "training salary". The broker explained that just before closing, the bank would verify nothing had changed in our situation. If, during that verification, they learned that I was no longer receiving a base salary, the approval would "self destruct". In other words, once my salary went away, the approval would too. Apparently salespeople on 100 percent commission needed to show two years of earnings history to get approved for a mortgage.
Gosh, that was a scary time. Faith, faith, faith! After we found the house in Hillsborough, for which we wanted to make an offer, I asked my dad to come out and take a look. This was important to me because my father had spent about 10 years worth of Saturdays helping my brother Kevin rehab a “fixer upper” he had bought in Portsmouth. I knew my father was too old and that Hillsborough was too far away for me to hope he might be available in the same way to help me. I wanted to hear him say that the house was solid and that he had no concerns. I can still remember him looking at me in the basement of that house, after we had checked it out top to bottom (literally), and saying, "I'm comfortable with it." We made an offer the next day, and after a little negotiation, had 145 Bog Road under contract! The house was a three-bedroom, one-bath cape on two acres of land with a nice barn. We bought it for $89,000 and put $10,000 down with money I had taken out of the 401k I had from my days at Oxford Health Plans.
I was particularly fearful because the following month after closing, I would be going on the $1400 a month draw! It's been over 20 years but I still remember a palpable fear of failure that motivated me as I worked hard to find companies with problem copiers! I think our mortgage payment was about $800 a month. Suffice it to say, I hit my knees a lot that first year. We were on the commission-only compensation plan but I clung to the Bible promise "Yaheweh Yireh" (God is a provider) and watched as He revealed His character as a loving Father to my family. After every successful month I would tell James, my firefighter friend, “He did it again!” When people asked about how stressful it must be to work on 100 percent commission I would liken it to collecting manna on a daily basis (as the Israelites did for forty years in the desert). When the dust settled on 1998, I had made over $70,000 in commissions, had a company car, a happy wife, a gentleman's farm with dairy goats and chickens, and a sweet little one-year-old boy.
The Home Birth
We settled into our new home and, in the first month after we stopped using birth control, found ourselves happily expecting baby number two. A local midwife had set up an office in town. She had an attractive sign outside her first floor office and before she even told me she was pregnant, my wife stopped in to meet her.
Shortly after showing me the positive pregnancy test, she proceeded to excitedly tell me all about this amazing midwife whom she wanted to contract with. She assured me that “Sally” had successfully delivered dozens of babies in the comfort of her clients’ own homes and that she even had an OBGYN backup available, just in case. The OBGYN would be on standby and transportation to the hospital would happen way before either of them were at any risk because this woman really knew what she was doing.
She assured me that women have been successfully birthing babies at home, with midwife assistance, for centuries, so not to worry. She elaborated that insurance would not cover the home birth, but that “Sally” would take affordable monthly payments to include all the prenatal visits, and that by the time the baby was delivered, the whole pregnancy and birth would be paid for! She also said that we could use our Flexible Spending Account to pay for it with pre-tax dollars. What a bargain!
I agreed to meet “Sally”, and as you might expect, found myself sold on the whole idea after one conversation. I wanted my wife to be happy after all, and she was the one going through the pregnancy and birth, so who was I to refuse anything she wanted?
Unfortunately, I did not attend any of the prenatal visits like I had with our firstborn. Primarily, I missed them because I was living the pressure-filled life of a "commission only" salesman. The pressure I was feeling was exacerbated by the fact that our insurance was not covering the home birth, we would have another mouth to feed, and a now a mortgage. I didn’t feel bad about missing them because I trusted “Sally” and felt I had already “participated” beyond a reasonable expectation by agreeing to the whole crazy idea in the first place! I did, however attend the last prenatal appointment at “Sally's” insistence as the due date approached. That last prenatal appointment consisted of us watching a video documentary on the blessing of home birth and I was convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that we were doing the right thing. I was “drinking the Kool Aid!”
Things continued to progress nicely at work. I gained the confidence of senior management more each month as my results became consistent. The president of Flanagan’s was a very intelligent, charming, yet volatile man. In fact, my boss John enjoyed telling every new hire his legendary rule number 1..... “don’t ask Pete any questions.” Like most rules, John's rule developed from many painful interactions and the desire to avoid them.
John had learned that every question you asked Pete was responded to with a question of his own. You had better have an answer to Pete's question or you may be looking for escape the very conversation that YOU started! Suffice it to say, most of us quickly learned to obey "John's Rule number 1." The wise chose to give Pete a wide berth while using John as our “buffer.” One day, Pete found out about our home birth plans and I grew nervous when he promptly came to see me. He would often start our conversations with the same three words… “Keith, Keith, Keith…..." he proceeded in a fatherly tone, "I went to Dartmouth, and a lot of my classmates were different than you and I, they were really, REALLY smart. Most of them are doctors today. Let me tell you something, if your wife has any problems during the delivery, you are going to want one of them in your corner!” I appreciated his concern, and was even flattered that he came to speak with little ole me. Nevertheless, I decided not to try and explain. Besides, we were way too far down the road to change our direction anyway so I simply smiled and assured him that I would consider it.
"Sally" was so calm and reassuring. Picture a confident, peaceful, attractive, and fit mother of 7. That was our midwife. She was definitely "crunchy." This was a term of endearment that my generation coined to describe an earthy, practical, person who wore Birkenstock sandals probably ate granola, used patchouli oil as perfume, and did yoga in between vegetarian meals. The last thing we did during that appointment was quickly review an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper that Sally gave me with the title "What to Do if the Baby Comes Faster Than Expected." I remember thinking "yeah we won't be needing this" as I thoughtlessly stuck it in my back pocket.
My wife was 8 months pregnant and I had moved the master bedroom into the living room so that she wouldn’t have to go downstairs every time she had to pee. This pregnancy had the same amount of morning sickness, aches, and pains as the first, yet this time a nasty bout of walking pneumonia was added to the 9-month gauntlet my wife would endure. She is allergic to so many antibiotics that we have been forced to learn more about homeopathy and natural remedies than any 16th century pilgrim. Life was good and even though I was feeling the pressure to bring home the bacon, I was thoroughly enjoying my little farm and growing family. Best of all, it was SO wonderful to not have a landlord for the first time in my life.
We had a dairy goat that was kidding during the night and my wife heard all kinds of commotion coming out of the barn at about 11 AM while I was at work. She got her boots on and waddled out to see what wrong. Upon entering the barn she found a coyote, coy dog or perhaps even a wolf had cornered the baby goat & its mom. The beast was trying to get close enough to snatch the baby. My wife grabbed the shepherd's rod I had hung in the barn and started swinging it toward the animal when he turned and charged her, jaws snapping. She screamed for me to come and help her before she woke up in a cold sweat.
This dream came at a time when I was commuting 10 hours a week and working another 40; totally focused on hitting my monthly sales quota to ensure we were able to make the mortgage payment and pay the midwife. I suspected that her subconscious felt abandoned and alone because I had not attended all the prenatal visits as with Asher. My not being there to help her fight off the coyote was symbolic of her fear that I would not be there for the birth. Little did either of us know that the dream was a prophetic vision of a different manifestation of abandonment we were soon to experience.
On August 21st my wife woke me up a shortly before my alarm was set to go off and told me she was in labor. Admittedly, I was a little concerned that it might be a false alarm and before I could even ask "are you sure?" she blurted out "I know, I know you have to go to work!" I was taken aback by this and objected, "No, I was just going to ask if you were certain." She assured me so I happily jumped up to call the midwife and announce the time had come!
I had put Sally's number in my cell phone's address book to ensure that I could reach her right away. My wife said she was going to bake a birthday cake. I would like to tell you that I took a minute before dialing to pray for a safe delivery but I honestly can't remember if I did. You will understand how I could have forgotten such an important detail soon. The phone began to ring as I heard the pots and pans start to rattle downstairs. One ring, two rings, three rings... ok, getting a little nervous, four rings..... HELLO? "Sally, Hi it's me, Keith, today's the day!" Looong Pause. There was something very odd about that pause. I mean, I'm not exactly sure what I expected her to say, probably something like "WONDERFUL, I'M ON MY WAY!" or perhaps "HOW FAR APART ARE THE CONTRACTIONS?" but the last thing in the world I expected to hear, was an awkward silent pause.
She finally explained, "My husband just went in for surgery and I kind of wanted to be here when he woke up." As I sit here 17 and a half years later and write these memories down, I find myself thinking different thoughts than that birthing amateur thought. Instead of saying what I would say today (and probably what you are thinking I should have said), I confidently responded like the guy who only had one frame of reference. I remembered that 32 hour birthing marathon from 5 years earlier "Don't worry about it Sally, she's puttering around the kitchen baking a cake, I'll call you if I need you". Did Sally step up and say, “You know what? I think I better come and assess the situation.” Nope. You might expect that she offered something like, “Let me talk to your wife.” Wrong again! She was after all a trusted professional. Certainly she must have offered to stay on the phone with us through the next couple of contractions to determine if she should come right away.” HA! What she actually said was OK! She actually deferred to me! The goofball who had only been at one birth and let himself get pushed around by an arrogant doctor. She hung up and dashed into the hospital to be by her husband.
No sooner did we hang up when a MONSTER contraction hit my wife and my confidence evaporated like dry ice. I immediately called Sally back but was forced to leave her a voicemail. My wife asked me to go out to the car. She wanted her cell phone so she could get a friend's phone number. Before I got halfway there she called me back because another massive contraction was coming. Like a pinball, I bounced back into the house to hold and comfort her through the pain then called “Sally” again. Voicemail! As a healthcare practitioner, you would think she would be very familiar with something I now know, cell phones rarely work in hospitals. At least she would be by his side when her husband woke up. Why she allowed him to schedule an optional surgery so close to one of her mother's due dates is still a mystery.
Once that contraction was over I sprinted back to the car to get her cell phone. What I REALLY wanted to find was that 8.5 x 11 inch piece of paper “Sally” gave me called What to Do if the Baby Comes Faster Than Expected.
I returned with the phone but not the paper, and my wife tried calling her friend for prayer but got her voicemail before another strong contraction overwhelmed her. The phone rang! "THANK GOD! 'Sally' must be calling me back!” Unfortunately (or fortunately in hindsight), it was “Sally's” assistant who somehow must have heard from “Sally” that our labor had started. She said she was going to step into the shower and head over but I pleaded with her to come immediately as my wife howled in the background. She told me she was about 20 minutes away and would come. I hung up the phone & finally found the piece of paper only to discover that all it basically said was, "Don't do anything stupid."
I got Sally's voicemail again before my wife screamed in my face "I gotta PUSH!" She put her arms around me as I instinctively knelt in front of her and she rested over my torso. Her water broke forcefully as I thought THIS ISN’T SUPPOSED TO BE HAPPENING YET!!! I suddenly had my daughter’s head in my hands. Fear nearly overcame me as I worried that she might drown on her own amniotic fluid. I tried to turn her head (so that she would be facing the floor). My wife shrilly reminded me in that I just done what that paper counselled me not to do (something stupid). We were literally praying out loud, begging God to help us and then suddenly, baby Ruthie was in my hands as my wife fell backwards onto the kitchen floor. I placed the crying baby on her belly and ran to grab blankets and pillows from the spare bedroom. In the other room, I thought our four year old was still asleep and didn’t want to wake him just yet.
No sooner did I get them wrapped up in the blanket when the home phone rang. OH THANK GOD! It's “Sally” — finally! I picked up the phone only to hear my mother-in-law's greeting, "Good Morning." I love my mother-in-law, but this was no time for her latest excitement for a great antique call. I yelled into the phone, "Ellen! We just had a baby! I'll call you back!" I hung up on her, noticing the blood my hands left on the phone.
I looked up to see a car pulling into the driveway. In walked “Sally's” assistant, “Mary,” who immediately started ministering to my wife and new baby. I was so happy to have someone with us who knew what she was doing, that I almost picked her up and hugged her; but I caught myself and got out of the way. She explained that “Sally” had called her from the hospital and advised her of the situation before she had called us, and that she had hung up with me to call “Sally” back advising her that she was going to head over to our house. I later learned that “Sally” tried to discourage that because she did not want her assistant to arrive before she did. Thankfully, “Mary” advised “Sally” that she had heard my wife screaming in the background and that they needed to get to her pronto. “Sally” reluctantly agreed to leave her husband, who had not yet awoken, but “Mary” still got there first. Thank God for “Mary” because she was working for “Sally” (I don’t know her real name or where she is today but I sure wish I did).
Shortly after "Mary," "Sally" arrived. The first thing she noticed was that my wife and new baby were lying on the kitchen floor next to a bowl of cat food and she asked her assistant to move that away from them. They must have cut the umbilical cord and delivered the placenta but at that point my son had surfaced from the bedroom and I was introducing him to his new sister. He was making her gifts out of Lego people when my wife asked “Asher did mama wake you up?”
To which he replied, “Yes I thought you were dying!”
The three adults helped my wife get to our bed. Then “Sally" helped to get Baby Ruth to latch onto her breast.
The rest of the scene progressed much like you might have expected. The women cleaned up the kitchen, mopping the floor and "Sally" apologized profusely for not being there. As I reflect on the whole drama I must admit I was probably in shock. I was not upset, in fact I’m sure I insisted that she stop apologizing. I probably said, “Look at this beautiful healthy baby! Everything happens for a reason, don’t worry about it.” I’m sure I felt like a big shot too. How many fathers can claim to have delivered their own daughter with no medical training? (In reality, I delivered nothing, it was all my wife). I simply was there to hold her, wrap her up and catch the baby when she came out, I didn't even cut the cord! In fact, when Ruth’s little brother Samuel came I didn’t cut his cord either! After catching Ruthie with no one else in attendance, I felt like cutting the cord would be like going back to tandem skydiving after doing it alone.
Epilogue:
The postnatal check-in was pretty routine until “Sally” asked me for the final $200 payment that would bring our balance owed to $0. The request made me feel uncomfortable but I could not really grasp why. Yes, I was surprised that she didn’t say something like, “according to my ledger you still owe me $200, but based on what happened I’m going to call it even.” Then again, I also knew she had bills to pay and I had told her not to worry about the whole thing. My wife and daughter were fine so I wrote her a check. After she left, my wife and I talked further and she told me she was pissed that “Sally” had asked for that last payment, but I could not figure out exactly how I felt about it. I called “Sally” and asked if I could come to see her and she said, “Of course!” The next day, I went down to her office and told her that I needed to let her know that I was surprised that she asked for that final payment. She started crying about all of her bills and her contract stated that she gets paid even if the baby comes quicker than expected. I backed off and let it go. It wasn’t until years later that I realized what really bothered me about the whole thing was this: I didn’t get what I paid for.
I paid for her to be there, to help my wife and to deliver the baby. I could not return a product I wasn't satisfied with because my wife and baby were fine. I still did not get what I paid for but today, 17 years later, I have come to a new conclusion. I got a lot MORE than I paid for. I have let go of my resentment and I resolve that if I ever see her again I will give her a big hug and tell “Sally” that I am grateful for the amazing memories.
After Ruthie, we were blessed with three more children. If you’re inclined to assume that I swore off home birthing after Ruthie, you would be wrong. I simply swore off home birthing with “Sally.” Honestly, I was amazed by how quickly my wife recovered from Ruthie’s delivery. She was literally sitting at the kitchen table laughing and eating pancakes within 3 hours of the cutting of the umbilical cord. She was comfortable, relaxed and at home. It was so much better than a hospital birth, not comparable in any way. My advice to anyone considering a home birth would be simple. Put a clause in the contract that you will not have to pay if the midwife misses the birth. Ask the midwife you are considering if she has ever missed a birth, and if she has, find another one. Other than that, don’t do anything stupid, and enjoy the ride!
Thank you for reading. GOD BLESS you and GOD BLESS the midwives.
Exodus 1: 15-1
And the king of Egypt spake to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of the one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah: And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live. But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive.