The Amish Midwife

“I’m coming.” After covering her head with a white kerchief, she pulled on her floor-length pink robe, making sure her long brown braid was tucked inside.

She hurried down the stairs, opened the door and gazed with sleep-heavy eyes at the man standing on her front porch. She blinked twice to make sure she wasn’t dreaming and held the lantern higher. “Joseph?”

Why was her neighbor pounding on her door at two o’clock in the morning? He shifted a bundle he held in the crook of his arm. “I require your help, woman.”

That didn’t make any sense. Joseph was a confirmed bachelor who lived alone. “You need the services of a midwife?”

“That is why I’m here.” He spoke as if she were slow-witted. Maybe she was. What was going on?

It had been almost a week since she’d hit him with a tomato. This wasn’t his way of getting back at her, was it? Suddenly, the most probable answer occurred to her.

She reared back to glare at him. “Don’t tell me it’s for one of your goats. I’m not a vet, Joseph Lapp.”

She was ready to shut the door in his face. Joseph’s passion was his annoying goats. They were practically family to him. He preferred their company to that of his human neighbors. She often saw him walking in the pastures with the herd surrounding him. The frolicking baby kids were cute in the springtime, but it was the adults, Chester in particular, who saw her garden as a free salad bar.

“She’s sick and I don’t know what’s wrong.” The bundle Joseph held began whimpering. He lifted the corner of the blanket and uncovered a baby’s face.

Anne’s stared in openmouthed surprise. Her lantern highlighted the worry lines around his eyes as he looked at the infant he held. This wasn’t a prank. He wasn’t joking.

“Joseph, what are you doing with a bubbel? Where’s her mudder?” The babe looked to be only a few months old.

“Gone.”

“Gone where? Who is the mudder?” None of this made sense. Anne felt like she was caught in a bad dream.

“It’s Fannie’s child.”

“Fannie?”

“My sister.”

Anne had heard that Joseph’s sister had left the Amish years ago. It had broken his heart, or so everyone said. Anne wasn’t sure he had a heart to begin with.

“Can you help her?”

His terse question galvanized her into action. He had a sick child in his arms and he had come to her for help. She stepped away from the door. “Come in. How long has the babe been ill? Does she have a fever?”

Shouldering past Anne, he entered the house. “She has been fussy since her mother left her with me four nights ago, but it got worse this morning. No fever, but she throws up everything I’ve given her to drink. Tonight she wouldn’t stop crying. She has a rash now, too.”

The crying was more of a pitiful whimper. “Bring her into my office.”

Anne led the way to a small room off the kitchen where she met with her mothers-to-be for checkups and did well-baby exams on the infants as they grew. She quickly lit a pair of gas lanterns, bathing the space in light. She pulled her midwife kit, a large black leather satchel, off the changing table and said, “Put her down here.”

He did but he kept one hand on the baby in case she rolled over. At least he knew a little about babies. That was something of a surprise, too, in this night of surprises. His worry deepened the creases on his brow. Sympathy for him stirred inside her.

Joseph Lapp was a loner. He was a member of her Amish congregation, but he wasn’t close friends with anyone she knew about. When there was trouble in the community or someone in need, he came and did his part, but he never stayed to socialize, something that was as normal as breathing to most of the Amish she knew. He didn’t shun people. He just seemed to prefer being alone.

They had been neighbors for almost three years and this was the first time he had been inside her home. A big man, he stood six foot two, if not more, with broad shoulders and hammer-like fists. He towered over Anne and made the small room feel even smaller. She took hold of the baby and tried to ignore his overwhelming presence. He took a step back, thrust his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders as if he felt the tightness, too.

Anne quickly unwrapped and examined the little girl. The baby was thin and pale with dark hollows around her eyes. She looked like she didn’t feel good. “How old is she?”

“I don’t know for certain.”

This was stranger and stranger. “I would guess three or four months. She’s a little dehydrated and she is clearly in pain.” The baby kept drawing her knees up and whimpering every few minutes. The sides of her snug faded yellow sleeper were damp. It was a good sign. If the baby was wet, that meant she wasn’t seriously dehydrated.

“She needs changing, for one thing. Do you have a clean diaper?” Anne glanced at him.

“At the house, not with me.”

“There are some disposable diapers in the white cabinet on the wall. Bring me one and a box of baby wipes, too.”

He jumped to do as she requested. Anne took off the sleeper that was a size too small as well as the dirty diaper, noting a bright red rash on the baby’s bottom. “Bring me that blue tube of cream, too.”

When Joseph handed her the things she’d asked for, she quickly cleaned the child, applied a thick layer of aloe to the rash and secured a new diaper in place. It didn’t stop the baby’s whimpering as she had hoped. She carefully checked the little girl over, looking for other signs of illness or injury.

Joseph shifted from foot to foot. “Do you know what’s wrong with her?”

Perplexed, Anne shook her head. She didn’t want to jump to a faulty conclusion. “I’m not sure. Her belly is soft. She doesn’t have a fever or any bruising. I don’t see anything other than a mild diaper rash and a baby who clearly doesn’t feel well. I reckon it could be a virus. Is anyone else in the family sick?”

“I’m fine.”

Anne wrapped the baby in her blanket, lifted the child to her shoulder and turned to face Joseph. “What about her mudder?”

“I don’t think so. She wasn’t sick when I saw her last, but I only spoke to her for a few minutes.”

The baby began sucking noisily on her fingers. Anne studied the child as she considered what to do next. A cautious course seemed the best move. “She acts hungry. I have some electrolyte solution I’d like to give her. It’s water with special additives to help children with sick stomachs. Let’s see if she can keep a little of that down. What’s her name?”

“Leah.”

“Hallo, Leah,” Anne crooned to the child and then handed the baby to Joseph. He took her gingerly, clearly unused to holding one so little. The babe looked tiny next to his huge hands.

Why would Leah’s mother leave her baby in the care of a confirmed bachelor like Joseph? It didn’t make sense. There were a lot of questions Anne wanted to ask, but first things first. “I need to see if Leah can keep down some fluids. If she can’t, we’ll have to consider taking her to the nearest hospital.”

That would mean a long buggy ride in the dark. It wasn’t an emergency. An ambulance wasn’t needed. Anne glanced at Joseph to gauge his willingness to undertake such a task. He nodded his consent. “I will do what you think is best.”

He put the baby’s welfare above his own comfort. That was good. Her estimation of his character went up a notch. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. I’ll put the wet sleeper in a plastic bag for you. It’s too small for her, anyway.”

“It’s the only clothing she has.” He gently rocked the child in his arms.

“Nothing else?”

“Nay, just diapers.”

“She’s been wearing the same sleeper for four days?”

His eyes flashed to Anne’s, a scowl darkening his brow. “I washed it.”

Why wouldn’t Leah’s mother leave him clothes for the child? That was odd and odder yet. A baby could go through a half-dozen changes a day between spitting up and messing their diapers. “I have some baby clothes you can take home with you. I buy them at yard sales and people give them to me so I have some for mothers who can’t afford clothing.” Not all of her mothers were Amish. She had delivered two dozen Englisch babies during her time in Honeysuckle. The clothes had come in handy for several of the poorer women.