A Land to Call Home (10 page)

“You can help your wife continue to walk, and I will make us all some coffee. Then I will run over home and check on the others.” Ingeborg rattled the grate and, as the coals flared, added some wood shavings from the box under the reservoir. When those caught, she placed the kindling and added a couple of slightly larger sticks. As she went about the mundane chores, she kept an eye on Kaaren. Lars’ arm seemed to calm her and lend her strength. Perhaps it would be all right if he helped. She wasn’t about to tell anyone of the impropriety. Like Haakan had said, men were usually banished to the barn or the fields and welcomed home after the baby had made its entrance into the world.

Ingeborg found her family sound asleep in their beds, the boys’ faces washed and the supper things all put away. Paws thumped his tail at the side of the bed, his guilty look saying he’d landed there
just before she walked in. He liked sleeping with Thorliff, if given half a chance.

“How is she?” Haakan’s voice came through the dimness.

“Making do. In the wagon, this baby seemed in a hurry but then must have took a rest. Things should speed up now.”

“Do you need me to help?”

“Mange takk, but no. Lars will come for you if . . . if . . .” She turned back to the doorway. “God willing, all will be well.”

Thoughts of her own baby born long before its time and buried before she even knew it existed caused her to clamp her bottom lip between her teeth. Those days when they first arrived at their homestead had brought all kinds of hardships, but with God’s help they had survived.

Kaaren was still pacing the floor, albeit more slowly, when Ingeborg reentered the northern soddy. She’d changed into her nightclothes and wore a shawl around her shoulders. Four paces, turn, and back. “H-have a cup of coffee. It’s hot.”

“You want some?”

Kaaren shook her head. “I think I will sit down for a while, though. We are wearing a ditch in the floor.” She lowered herself into the rocker. “Lars, please read to me, will you?” She motioned to the Bible in its place of honor on the shelf above the rosemaled trunk she’d brought from Norway.

Lars gave Ingeborg a raised eyebrows look but did as asked, pulling the kerosene lamp closer to his shoulder so he could see. The Norwegian words rolled off his tongue as he began with the Twenty-third Psalm.

Kaaren rocked gently in the chair, the squeak of the rockers adding to the night music.

Ingeborg cupped her coffee mug in her hands and let the beauty of the words sink into her soul. The Lord had surely been their shepherd, and now she knew for certain He always would be.

Kaaren’s groan shattered the peace.

Lars leaped to his feet. The table rocked and only through his lightning grab did he keep the burning lamp from spilling over. He shot Ingeborg a terrified look and clasped Kaaren’s shaking hands. “What is it? What can I do?” He clasped one hand around her elbow and helped her to her feet.

“I . . . I think it is time to go to the bed.”

“Keep her walking.” Ingeborg watched for a moment. “I will get things ready.” She dug in the trunk and brought out a piece of worn
cloth, tearing it into strips as she moved toward the bed. Once they were knotted together, she lifted the corn husk mattress and tied the length to the rail stretching the ropes. Then she folded back the quilt and laid a second sheet, folded square, in the middle of the bed. “Now, Lars, you sit up against the wall, and we’ll brace Kaaren against you.”

“What are the strips for?”

“You will see.” Now that the time was nearing, she could feel herself settle into the rhythm as Kaaren whimpered with pain. “A time to be born,” the Bible said, and after the suffering would come the joy. She stuck more wood in the stove and moved the pot filled with water closer to the flame. Going back to the trunk, she removed the packet Kaaren had prepared beforehand. Soft clothes to wrap the baby in, tiny shirts, hemmed flannel squares for diapering, and a folded square with a long strip to wrap around the baby’s belly to hold the severed cord in place. Clean scissors to cut the cord. A baby quilt lay underneath the other things.

A cry forced itself past Kaaren’s clenched teeth.

“Can’t you do something?” Lars pleaded.

“It is just beginning.”

“Just beginning! She’s been at this for hours. You said the baby was going to come fast, that he was in a hurry.” He tried to keep his voice low, but the words hissed between clenched lips.

Ingeborg shrugged. “It was a fast start, and the water broke and . . .”

Kaaren moaned and opened her eyes again.

“How many babies have you helped bring into the world, anyway?”

“Lars.” Kaaren tried to look up at his face. “Babies don’t come until they are ready.” She clenched teeth and fingers against another spasm.

“Inge!” Lars shook his head. “Can’t you help her?”

Kaaren pulled against the knotted cloths, a sharp groan matching the grimace of her face.

Ingeborg was glad Lars couldn’t see his wife’s face. “Lars, this isn’t helping her. If you’d rather, go wait in the barn, or better yet, go on over to my house and get some sleep. Women have been enduring this since time began.”

“No!” He settled Kaaren back against his chest and rubbed the thigh muscle her clenching fingers had sent into a cramp.

Kaaren screamed on the next one, which seemed to follow right on the back of another.

But an hour later, with contractions rolling through her body, the baby still hadn’t come.

Dear God, what are we to do? The baby should be showing by now. Is it turned? Is something else wrong? Please, you can’t let Kaaren lose this baby, or Lars lose them both. Please, I beg of you, tell me what to do
.

“Never again will she go through torture like this,” Lars muttered, the words lost in another scream.

Ingeborg understood his fear.
Father in heaven, Jesus, help us please
.

Y
ou’d best be praying,” Ingeborg whispered.

Lars shot her a startled look and then nodded. With his chin resting on his wife’s sweat-darkened hair, he closed his eyes, his lips moving soundlessly.

Ingeborg knelt beside the bed, taking one of Kaaren’s shaking hands in her own. Storming the throne of heaven with her entreaties, she felt tears slip down her cheeks, tears of fear and worry, of a breaking heart and a sorrowing mind. She thought He had abandoned them before, would He do so again? She had prayed at other bedsides, and God took them home anyway. Flashes of Kaaren’s two little daughters lying pale and cold, and Carl slipping away from under her ministering fingers whipped through her mind, wrenching her heart.

She gritted her teeth. Taking in a deep breath, she raised her head. There would be no doubting. God said He was with them, and whatever His will, that would be good. He would not let them go. He never had. In spite of her doubts and her rebellion, He had been there waiting for her to turn around and seek Him.

“Kaaren, I am going to see if I can feel the baby’s head.”

Kaaren nodded without opening her eyes. She lay panting from the strain of the last contraction. Ingeborg wrung out the cloth in the pan beside the bed and wiped the sweat from Kaaren’s pale brow and the sides of her face. Then going to the washstand, she took a bar of soap and scrubbed her hands. She held them dripping above the basin, palms up. Her hands were so big and the opening so small. How would she . . . ? She shut off the thought and returned to the bed.

“This will probably hurt.” She put every teeny bit of confidence
she could muster into her voice. “I’m going to wait until the pain comes and see if I can feel the head.”

A slight nod showed Kaaren heard her.

When Kaaren screamed again, Ingeborg slipped her fingers into the birth canal, but where there should have been a round head, her fingertips grazed what she immediately knew to be a tiny foot. She bit her lip till the blood salted her tongue. “God above, help us here. Please, I beg of you.”

Kaaren lay back against her husband, gasping and sniffing against the tears that joined the sweat coursing down her face.

What to do, Lord? What to do?
Ingeborg felt a presence beside her and turned her head. Metiz stood next to the bed, having entered without a sound. Even the screen door kept silent for her.

“How did you know?”

“Baptiste, he find me. You call me, I come.”

Ingeborg shook her head. “I didn’t call you. God did.” She swallowed and nodded toward Kaaren. “I think the baby is breech. He can’t be born that way.”

“No, must turn.” Metiz looked down at her hands. “I wash.” When she returned, she nodded to Lars, whose eyes were filled with fear. “You help turn her.”

“What?”

“Get her on hands and knees.”

“Are you crazy? She can’t move.”

“We move her.” She raised her voice. “Kaaren, you hear?”

Kaaren nodded so slightly that a blink would have missed it.

“We help you to hands and knees. Baby not like that, maybe move by himself.”

“Ja, I will.” Her voice faded in and out, as if the breath it took was too precious to waste on words.

Between the four of them, they soon had Kaaren in the new position. Lars braced his wife from one side and Ingeborg from the other. When the pain gripped her again, her scream seemed to go on for all time.

“Now, sit back.”

Lars propped her against his chest again so that Kaaren reclined, her hands clenched in a death grip on the knotted rope. When she shuddered and began to pull against the rope, Metiz felt for the baby. Her obsidian eyes sparkled when she turned to Ingeborg. “It work. Baby come now.”

“Thank you, Father in heaven.”

“Great Spirit love babies.” Metiz returned to lay her hands on Kaaren’s belly. “You push baby out now.”

Kaaren raised her eyelids only halfway, letting them fall shut her agreement.

“You be strong!” Metiz’ voice rang in the sweltering room, the command striking tremors in Ingeborg’s soul.

Lars whispered in Kaaren’s ear and grasped her elbows. With a keening as old as womanhood, Kaaren took a deep breath and pushed with a might far beyond her own.

“One more.”

Lars whispered again. Kaaren gasped.

“God, give her strength!” Ingeborg brushed the torrents away from her eyes.

The ancient cry set her heart to pounding. She reached down and caught the still little body as it slipped out of its sanctuary. “It’s a girl.” Hushed tones greeted the reverence of the moment. But only for a moment.

“Baby not breathing.” Metiz pushed on the infant’s chest while Ingeborg wiped mucus from the tiny nose. Then the old woman grabbed the infant by the heels and slapped her smartly on her peach-sized bottom.

A gasp, a choking cough, and the little one let out a wail that brought smiles to all the faces.

“Help me,” Kaaren forced out between lips bloodied from being clamped between her teeth.

Metiz handed the baby to Ingeborg and dropped to the side of the bed again. She looked over her shoulder at Ingeborg. “ ’Nother baby.”

“Twins?” Lars left off looking at the baby in Ingeborg’s arms and wrapped his arms around Kaaren as she pushed again.

“One more.” Metiz placed gentle fingers around the emerging head and turned the baby just enough so it slipped into her hands. “Girl.” But like the other, the tiny form lay limp.

Ingeborg handed the first child to Lars. “Put her in your shirt front, tight against your chest. We’ve got to keep her warm.”

While Ingeborg did that, Metiz tipped the infant upside down and shook her gently. With still no response, she held the baby cradled in her hands while Ingeborg wiped away the mucus.

“We slapped the other on the backside, and that made her catch her breath.”

Metiz nodded. “Get a basin of warm water, not too hot.” She
slapped the baby and shook her gently once more, but still the baby didn’t breathe. Compressing the tiny ribs also had no effect.

Ingeborg sent prayers shooting upward as she filled the basin from the reservoir and tested it with her elbow. When she set it on the table, Metiz swiftly submerged the still form, brought it up and dunked her again.

“Blow in nose.”

Ingeborg did as told while the old woman pressed just above the baby’s belly. A shudder, a gulp, and the little one squeaked. With the next breath, she whimpered.

“Thanks be to God,” Ingeborg breathed, tears of gratitude, fear, and all else streaming down her cheeks.

“She’s breathing?” Lars whispered, so he wouldn’t wake Kaaren who still lay against him, sleeping the sleep of the exhausted.

“Ja, she is.” Ingeborg didn’t add the “barely” said in her mind. “Have you ever saved any babies so tiny?” she whispered for Metiz’ ears alone.

A bare shake of the head told of Metiz’ concentration as she swished the baby in the water again, now keeping the face clear.

Kaaren groaned as her body began to expel the afterbirth. Ingeborg flew to her side and began massaging Kaaren’s stomach. Beneath her hands she could feel the muscles contracting and remembered this stage after Andrew’s birth. It still hurt, and she turned to see Kaaren bite down on her lip and clamp her fingers on Lars’ knees.

Kaaren opened her eyes when it was over. “Do I remember two babies being born?”