The curvy road required full attention, but traffic was light. Dusk had settled in now, and I had the headlights on and was remembering that there was a place to get really good oyster soup along here somewhere.
Then came Joella's voice, a small, thin voice, through the open partition. “Andi, I don't feel so good.”
I looked up and in the rearview mirror saw her face, pale and ghostly in the dim light. “Maybe you're hungry. It's getting late.”
“I'm not hungry. I probably shouldn't have eaten that corned-beef sandwich at lunch. My stomach doesn't feel so great.”
“I have Tums in my purse. Do you want a couple?”
“Okay.”
I dug one-handed in my purse and handed her the plastic carton. “How long have you been feeling like this?”
“I wasn't feeling great even before we left Vigland. My back's been hurting all day. I'd probably have gone home early, except there was no one to take my place.”
“Why didn't you say something earlier?”
Actually, I could guess why. She was still embarrassed about that rush to the hospital with indigestion. But I felt a jolt of alarm now. Backache. Abdominal pain. Another false alarm? Or could this be the real thing?
“It can't be labor,” she added. “I'm not due for at least another month. I really shouldn't have eaten that sandwich.”
“Does it feel like last time?”
“Well, kind of. Except now I get all tight and crampy . . . and then it kind of lets go. It didn't do that last time.”
That had the scary sound of contractions to me. I pressed down on the gas pedal. Surely there was plenty of time, but it wouldn't hurt to hurry along. “Are the pains coming regularly, so you can time how far apart they are?”
“About five minutes, I think.”
Five minutes! Wasn't that awfully close? I tried not to panic. But first babies take a long time to arrive, right? Sarah had been in labor almost eighteen hours when Rachel was born. I just hoped this one knew the proper schedule. Even more, I hoped this
was
just another bout of indigestion. Maybe the Tums would take care of it. But I wasn't going to take a chance.
“I think I'll swing by the hospital when we get to Vigland. We're only about thirty miles away. You lie down, okay?”
“Okay.”
My eyes kept flicking from the odometer to the clock to the partition into the back. After five miles I said softly, hoping the pains had let up and Joella had drifted off to sleep, “Joella? You okay?”
“I . . . I'm all . . . wet. Maybe we should stop and see if I'm bleeding. I really . . . hurt.”
I spotted a pull-out area on the canal side of the road up ahead. I parked the limo and raced around back. A dim light, along with other pinpoints of light under the wine racks, came on when I opened the door. Just what we needed right now. A romantic ambiance.
Joella was lying on her side on the long, sofalike seat that ran along the side of the limo, sweat beading her forehead even though it was comfortably cool here. I couldn't see any blood, but I scrunched the gauzy fabric of her dress. Wet.
Did that mean her water had broken? I had no idea how much wetness would signify that it had. A gallon? A tablespoon? “We've got to get you to the hospital right now, beforeâ”
“I'm not sure there's time.”
“Babies don't come this fast. It's not like going through the express lane at Wal-Mart!”
She gave a small cry, fists clenched and face twisted with pain. “Wanna bet?”
T
he pain retreated. I grabbed the hem of her long, gauzy skirt and wiped her forehead.
“Can you look at me, Andi?” she asked.
I peered at her in the dim light. How come ol' Ned didn't have something in the 300-watt range in here so he could see to count his millions? “You look a little sweaty. And pale, butâ”
“Not my face, Andi. I don't need to know how my face looks.”
“Oh!” I gulped as it got through to me what she meant. “I can't do that! I'm no doctor. I wouldn't know what to look forâ”
“You look to see if there's a
baby,
okay?” she asked, her tone going uncharacteristically tart at my reluctance. Another pain brought a louder cry this time. “Help me . . . get undressed.”
I helped her off with her underthings and warily lifted the flowered sundress. In my own lone pregnancy, I was under anesthesia for the caesarean, with the doctor picking the date, and none of what was happening to Joella ever happened to me.
“Tell me what you see,” she gasped as another contraction clamped down on her.
“What, Andi? Daisies? Or
what?
”
“I . . . I think I see something . . .”
Not a daisy, that was for sure. “I . . . I think it may be the top of the baby's head.”
But that couldn't be! It was way before Joella's due date. We weren't in a hospital. And she hadn't been in labor all that long. Unless maybe you counted her back pain this afternoon, and the time
before
she told me about the contractions . . . But, no, this couldn't be the baby coming. I was surely mistaken about what I was seeing.
“Maybe you'd better call 911.”
Which is when I finally realized that you can't argue a baby out of coming. I wiggled my upper body through the open partition and grabbed my purse from the seat up front. I dialed 911, afraid we were in a dead zone and nothing would go through. But, no, there was a person, a real, live person.
“I'm in a limousine out here on the highway to Port Townsend, and my friend is pregnant, and I think I can see the top of the baby's headâ”
“Hey, hey, slow down,” the woman soothed. “You're where, and what is happening?”
I tried again. “We're parked alongside the roadâ”
“In a limousine
?”
“
Yes . . .
”
She let the peculiarity of the limousine go and led me through the more important points of what was happening with Joella and our exact location. “Okay, I'm sending an ambulance.”
“Do you need a description of the limousine? It's long and blackâ”
“Somehow I doubt there'll be so many limousines parked alongside the road that we need to identify this particular one.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“I'm going to connect with a doctor in the emergency room at the hospital. You won't be able to talk to him directly, but you can talk through me, okay?”
“Okay.” I wiped my damp palm on the pant leg of the uniform.
A little silence, and then she was back. “Okay, he's on the line now. He wants you to look again and tell him what you see now.”
I looked, cell phone scrunched awkwardly between shoulder and cheek. “I don't see anything! What do I
do?
”
A moment as she passed that information along. “He says don't do anything. Everything sounds normal. You can see the top of the baby's head when the mother pushes; then it goes out of view between pushes.”
“But it isn't time for pushes,” I argued. “She isn't due for at least a month. She hasn't been in labor long enough!”
“Should I push?” Joella cut in. “I don't think I can keep from pushing! Oh!” Another gasp.
“Yes, there, I see it again!” I yelled into the phone.
“He wants to know how long it is between contractions.”
“I think it's down to maybe two or three minutes. Or less.”
“Has the mother's water already broken, or is the bag still around the baby's head?”
“I think maybe it broke earlier. Everything's all wet. I don't see anything around the head. When I can see it.”
“Good.”
Doctor and 911 woman walked me through it, like leading a blind person through a landscape littered with booby traps and sinkholes. Through contractions that got ever closer together. Through Joella's screams and panting gasps. Through her abdomen feeling like a drum about to burst when I fearfully touched it. Through my panic. Through half-dollar-sized glimpses of fine, dark baby hair. Through a check on Joella's pulse, me with hand clenched around her wrist while trying to look at the second hand on my watch and keep from losing my shoulder-to-cheek grip on the cell phone.
I found myself in nonstop prayer.
God, take care of her,
please. Take care of the baby. Don't let anything go wrong. Keep me
from doing anything wrong or dumb!
Where is that ambulance? Why isn't it here yet?
I didn't realize I'd yelled the words until the woman's voice assured me the ambulance was on its way.
“Be patient. It's coming. You're quite a ways out there. What's your friend's name?”
“Joella . . . but she shouldn't be having the baby yet! It's not time. Doesn't it take hours and hours for a first baby?”
“I don't think babies pay much attention to statistics.”
Right. This one apparently hadn't a clue.
“The baby's head is coming farther out now . . . but it's facedown!”
Nothing wrong there. Facedown was good, the doctor via the 911 woman assured me. Was the umbilical cord wrapped around the baby's neck? No. That was good too. Now I should wipe out the baby's mouth. I stood up and frantically felt in the pockets of the chauffeur's uniform. Paper napkin from Tanya's wedding reception! It had silver wedding bells on one side, but it was clean and unused.
No, baby, you weren't born with a silver spoon in your mouth,
but you did have silver bells!
The head was out now. I knelt again and followed their instructions about wiping.
“I can see a shoulder . . . but it isn't moving! Does that mean it's stuck?”
“Don't pull,” the woman said, almost yelling now. “Just let things happen naturally! Don't pull.”
Pull?
Like I was trying to yank an oversized carrot out of the ground? You've got to be kidding, lady. No way. The last thing I had in mind was pulling
.
“Doctor says just try to catch the baby, support it as it comes out. And be careful! Babies are slippery.”
Slippery. Yes, oh yes, indeed. Very slippery. Shoulders, arms, tiny hands! Long, agonizing pause in the action, while I kept up my one-sided dialogue with God.
Help her, help her, help
her! She's in Your hands. The baby's in Your hands. I'm in Your
hands!
Body, legsâ
Another mind-bending push from Joella, and I stared in astonishment, my throat choked up. Head, body, arms, legs, itsybitsy feet. It was all there. “I-I have a baby in my hands!”
God, thank You! A baby! A miracle right here in my hands!
“Is the baby breathing?”
“I don't know. . . . No, I don't think so!” Plunge from awe back to panic mode.
“Hold it upside downâ”
“
Upside down?”
“Upside down. By the ankles. But hold on tight
.
Tap the bottom of its feetâ”
I did, and a lusty yowl followed that so startled me I almost dropped the yowler.
“She's breathing!”
“Good. Hold her normally now. But don't pull on the cord.”
I snuggled the baby up close between Joella and me, kneeling with the baby in my arms. She was still howling, as if, now that she'd found out how to do it, she didn't intend to quit. She was definitely breathing, and so was Joella, and that was reassuring, butâ
“Now what?” I asked frantically. “Doesn't something have to be done with the cord? Cut or something?” I eyed the lifeline that still tied baby and mother together. Inspiration! “I . . . I always carry a pocketknife in my purse.”
“The doctor says just leave it alone.” The woman sounded alarmed. “The cord doesn't have to be cut immediately. Don't try to do anything. The paramedics will take care of everything when the ambulance arrives.
Don't do anything.”
I got the gist of that frantic message. Leave it alone, lady! Don't start sawing away like you're trying to hack the rope on a boat anchor in two. Not that I wanted to cut anything anyway.
But I'd have done it if they'd said it had to be done, I realized.
You'd have helped, wouldn't You, God?
“Everything okay?” the woman asked.
“Joella, are you okay?”
She tried to lift her head to see down to where I was still on my knees. “Is my baby okay?”
“She's fine. She's wonderful. She's a baby!”
Voice from the cell phone. “The doctor says now you should just wrap the baby in something and lay it on the mother's abdomen.”
New panic. “Wrap it in
what
?” We weren't exactly rolling in receiving blankets here.
“My skirt,” Joella said. “Your jacket. Anything!”
I tore off the jacket of my chauffeur's uniform, glad it was nicely lined with silky stuff, and got it wrapped around the baby. I laid her on Joella's abdomen.
Somebody gave a relaxed sigh. Joella? The baby? Me? Maybe all three of us.
Then I just looked at what we had here. A baby. Where before there was one, now there were two!
“I'm a mother,” Joella said, in the wondering way of some astronaut announcing,
Hey, here I am, on the far side of the moon.
And I suddenly felt God right there, just as if He were standing beside me, looking over my shoulder with satisfaction at this new life. God and His miracle of creation that had happened right before my eyes. I'd been present when Sarah was born, obviously. I'd been awed when I came out from under the anesthesia and she was there. But thisâ! To see it all happen, to hold this new creation in my hands the very moment it happened! Could anyone experience this and
not
believe in God?
“Hey, are you still there?” Tiny voice coming from the cell phone that I'd dropped in my struggle with the jacket. I picked it up.
“I'm here.” In the distance I could hear a faint wail. “I think I hear the ambulance.”