Be Forewarned: This is a birth scene, but is not graphic, and seeks to portray more the emotions that go along with giving birth, rather than the physical.

May 1780

Leah sat on the rough wooden rocking chair on the veranda, enjoying the warm late spring air and nursing her newborn child. Pale pink and white petals fell from the branches of the dogwood trees and fluttered across the newly sprouting green grass. Her thoughts turned apprehensively to her future. She prayed that the crops would be plentiful and for a late frost so that she would be able to harvest it all by herself. She did not want to think about what would happen if they did not. She had spent the small amount of money she had hidden from her father and brothers at the beginning of the war to pay the old midwife. What had been left was a small amount of paper money the continental congress had in rebellion issued, but it had proved to be so worthless in trading she had thrown it, in exasperation, into the creek. She rocked slowly, humming a song she had invented that had no particular beginning or end, remembering back to two weeks earlier…

When she had felt the baby flip over head down inside her, she had gone to the old widow's home only a few miles down the trace, giving her all the money she had and thrusting a basketful of early chokecherries and last year's pumpkin made into a pie in her arms so that she would come home with her and stay for the birth and for a week afterwards. Although Leah had been sure her labor would begin immediately, it had not. Long days passed and nothing happened, and so the midwife had journeyed to a distant neighbor's to bring two young women Leah had know as a child before her mother had died and who now had married and had children of their own.

When Leah had looked at her in confusion, she had told her with a smile, "Nothing gets labor going like a good walk and being in the company of women what's already had babies and know what birthings about."

They had sat and had breakfast on the porch. The old woman had encouraged Leah to eat all that she pleased. At noon the midwife announced that they would be going for a long walk that might take all day. They had ventured far into the forest and came upon a small green meadow set deep in a valley between two towering mountains. Sitting on a blanket in the sun, watching wildflowers nod their heads in the breeze Leah had felt a stirring deep within. Frightened, she had jumped to her feet and had wanted to run home as quickly as possible. After much coaxing and reassurance, the midwife had convinced her to walk the long way home.

"Nothing will be happening anytime soon, child. This'll take time. The walk will do you good, and shorten the work to be done." All four women walked slowly, the others supported her and stopped when a few of the cramping twinges, a half of an hour apart and a minute long, came. The midwife had her lean against and wrap her arms around one of the women for support, spoke to her encouragingly and rubbed her back with the same amount of pressure she felt in her belly to relieve it. When they walked they chatted away happily, telling stories about their husbands and children. Their cheerfulness and obvious ease made Leah's beginning fear melt away and she soon laughed along with them.

They reached the house after a walk of several hours, settling in the main room, all in a circle around her. She felt the uncomfortable squeezing sensations of each come but she did not notice them as pains almost at all until a trickle of water escaped down her legs. The widow smiled at her and the girls all exclaimed in joy and embraced her.

"It is half done now. Now comes the hardest part." The midwife brought her outside to walk with her in the garden for another hour, encouraging Leah to tell her about her mother, her favorite memories and stories, all meant to distract her. When she felt the deep ache come, she hugged the midwife's shoulders and shuffled back and forth slowly in the dance that relieves a laboring woman her discomfort, breathing shallowly and panting a deep ohhhh, the sound the midwife had had her practice for days before her labor had begun. The midwife moved, breathed and sang with her.

She had Leah come back inside as evening approached and the clenching sensations she felt sweep down her belly were now only ten minutes apart. She closed her eyes as a wave of pain overwhelmed her and hurt so much more than any other had previously. It seemed as if her body would give her no break now, no sooner had one started than another crashed into her. Soon after she began to sob, feeling lost and afraid the labor would never end. She felt out of control and the fear she felt multiplied the pain until she felt as if she would surely die. It had hurt before, but it had not felt more than she could bear, not like this.

The midwife wrapped her arms around her upper back. The girl had begun, in frantic fear, to fight the powers that would very soon usher her baby into the world. "Look at me." Leah looked into her eyes, her fear showing like an animal cornered. "See that I will not leave you. Breathe like I showed you…yes. Good. Good." She stroked her hair, waited for another one to come upon her.

"We will do this together. Do not fight it. Let it wash over you. You are almost there, I am proud of you. Soon your baby will be here. Do not forget that. Yes… Good. Very good… It will not go on forever. I know it frightens you, but that is only because you know you must let go. Letting go in every way possible is the hardest thing for a person to do. There. With me…" She panted and breathed with her, and Leah began to let go.

"I can do this… open… open wide… no fear, no pain…" she repeated over and over.

One of the women brought her an herbal tincture the midwife had instructed her to prepare. The plants were the same as the ones the midwife had learned from her captivity with the Pennacook tribe; she had learned under an old crone before she had been forcibly returned by her father when he discovered where she was. She had been only a few years older than the girl laboring before her was now. Leah gulped it down. The warm heat settled in her belly and soothed her, and soon after it had taken some of the edge off the pains.

As they got closer and closer together, the girls continued to sit around her and utter instinctual meaningless words of comfort and encouragement and strength and Leah began to breathe and relax again. The next few pains overwhelmed her less and less. She concentrated on the midwife's face, felt the soothing hands touching and rubbing her in all her sore places. She began to calm down even more. The woman's face was an anchor in the waves crashing into her faster and faster. Her fear had disappeared. With fear the pains had been horrible and unbearable. Now she felt strong and full of purpose, allowing the sensations she felt deep down in her belly only added to her sense of strength.

Each pain that came after hurt and moved lower and lower but she did not feel lost any longer. She suddenly got down, feeling an urgent need to crouch. The midwife nodded to the other women when she saw the expression on her face. This girl had let go much faster than many of the women she had attended in her long life. Many think it is the squeezing and pushing of the womb that causes the pain of labor, but the old widow knew better. It is about letting go in every possible way, which is the most scary and powerful feeling they will ever have. To surrender to their body, with the whole of their being. She's letting her body do the work now. She saw it turn into a glazed look of concentration. The girls supported her back and sides, panting and groaning in effort when she did as she pushed.

She clung to them and leaned on their bodies as support and she pushed, staring intently at the face of the midwife who squatted right in front of her. The pain, which seemed to be constant now, she felt but seemingly as if it were not a part of her; she was held fast in another world which consisted of this moment and pushing. She instinctually reached out and caught her own baby as it slid into her hands. The women all kissed her in joy, stopping their rhythmic chants of comfort when the baby was born.

"A girl!"

Leah began to cry, her happiness total. She felt as though she were soaring above the clouds. The afterbirth came from her body almost without her knowledge, she did not feel it. The midwife cut the cord when it stopped pulsing with life.

"She has her father's eyes…"

"Silly girl, all babies have blue eyes when they're born"

"Shh!"

As the baby nursed the midwife rubbed her belly to stop the bleeding. The women went upstairs to sleep and to give the two privacy. The midwife brought out a wooden bath basin, heated water over the fire. She bathed the two of them. She wrapped the two in warm blankets and kept watch as they slept.

The next day the two women left, hugging her and congratulating, exclaiming over the baby. For five more days the midwife stayed behind, cooking and taking care of both of them, instructing her in the right way to nurse her child and other things she would need to know to. Leah felt such gratitude she had tried to give the midwife anything she could to make up for the lack of sufficient coins. She had refused. "You know how birthing is done now. In these times I would do well to have an extra pair of hands. If I call on you, you will help?"

She had of course agreed, but had been puzzled why she would want someone as young as she was as an assistant. She had only attended one birth, that being her own.

"It is enough."