Chapter 4: An Amish Birth

On my way home from the hospital, I thought back to another birth I was honored to witness. When we lived in Wisconsin in the early 1980s, I attended several Amish births. The Amish don’t use modern farm equipment, electricity, or indoor plumbing, and also don’t have telephones, much less computers, email, iPods, or other gadgets. So when a baby announces his or her imminent arrival, the mother has to first locate Pa somewhere on the farm, get the children to Grandma and Grandpa’s “doddy haus” (the grandparents’ apartment, usually attached to the farmhouse), find a teenage neighbor to agree to do the morning or evening milking that day, and have Pa go to the nearest friendly “English” (non-Amish) neighbor to use their phone to call the midwife or doctor.

Emma and Joel were expecting their seventh child. She had experienced easy births with the others and remained in good health throughout this pregnancy. She had carried the baby to term, he was growing nicely, she took good care of herself, understood good nutrition, kept her house clean and tidy (one of the things I observe when I consider a family’s suitability for a homebirth) and was excited that they had been blessed with yet another baby, though they didn’t know if it was another little “dishwasher” or “wood chopper” yet—the terms they used when announcing a new baby girl or boy to their Amish family and friends.

I carried a primitive kind of pager back then and had the dads call me as early as possible when things started up. The Amish settlements stretched for over fifty miles in all directions. There were perhaps half a dozen of us covering this area who often assisted at these births.

When Joel’s call came one sunny day about noon, I quickly called my husband David, who helped me pack up our five children so he could drive me to the Lehmann’s farm. When we got there Emma had everything all arranged—the farm and kids were all taken care of, she had washed the dirty dishes, the bed was made up with a plastic sheet under fresh linens, with another full set under that for after the birth, and she was walking around the house in her homemade nightie and slippers, grinning from ear to ear and blowing little puffs of air along with the contractions while Joel was nervously trying to work on a jigsaw puzzle she had assigned to him (to keep him busy and occupied, I suspect).

She walked around for a while, sipping juice and taking short trips to the outhouse every hour or so. The bedroom had a freshly painted commode by the bed so she wouldn’t have to leave the bedroom after the birth for ten days. A nightstand was set up with everything she would need to care for the baby and herself: diapers, a diaper pail, baby clothes, sanitary pads, and an oil lamp.

Things slowed down around four in the afternoon. I suggested she use the time to nap, but she was all business and suggested using “the combs.” I had never heard of this so she showed me the pressure points along the base of my thumbs, which she said can be stimulated to help with contractions. She made two fists around two small hair combs and, sure enough, she got the contractions going again in no time. About an hour later she made a beeline for the bedroom, had Joel light a kerosene lamp and hold it up for me, and propped herself up on the bed, though I could not detect by her breathing that things had picked up that fast, but after a couple more rather sedate, lady-like puffs, she started pushing. Before I could dribble oil on my hands to support her perineum, out barreled an eight-pound wood chopper who promptly howled his arrival. Leave it to efficient Emma! They hadn’t really needed me at all. They knew exactly how to do this.

Joel cut the cord, then picked up and held his baby while I helped deliver the placenta, which in Amish tradition would be buried under the eaves of the house. Then Joel spoke for the first time all day. He told me how with their first baby he had been so afraid of poking him with a pin while diapering him that when he finally finished and tried to pick up the baby he found him stuck to the bed—he had pinned the diaper to the sheets!

Joel looked down at Emma and said in his slow drawl, “Well, Ma, what should we name him?”

Emma said, “Oh, Pa, I dunno. What do you wanna name him?”

He replied, “Well, I dunno.”

After seven kids, surely they knew how to do this, I thought.

After a minute or so he added, “Maybe we should get the hat.”

Handing Baby Boy back to Emma, Joel got his black Sunday hat from its peg in the kitchen by the woodstove and set it on the bed. Then he cut up little pieces of paper and they both wrote down their favorite boy names, folded them, and dropped them in the hat. I still didn’t know where this was going.

Then Joel picked up the baby and gently put a little hand into the hat. When he did, the baby’s hand opened up as his arm was extended and then shut into a fist when it touched the bottom of the hat. He was supposed to pick his own name!

His father pried the scrap of paper out of the tiny fist, opened it, and announced, “His name is Elmer!” They both positively beamed at each other then, a long loving look into each other’s eyes.

Elmer could never blame them for the name if he didn’t like it. He had chosen it himself.

 

 

 

“F0r far too many women pregnancy and birth is something that happens to them rather than something they set out consciously and joyfully to do themselves.”

~Sheila Kitzinger