When one of the nuns, Sister Margaret, came to me, I told her I had to go to the bathroom, and when I did, a clump of something jellylike came out of me with my urine, which she told me was a sign that the baby would be here soon. A few hours later, after I was allowed to rest, I tried to get out of bed. I thought I needed the bathroom, but I didn’t make it: warm liquid pooled around me. After that, everything happened so fast. The contractions started, light tightening at first, but they soon progressed to painful clenching that gripped me so hard I could barely breathe. I was taken to the delivery room and positioned in the delivery chair—a school desk–like contraption with footrests to push down on and a hole where the seat would be. Other pregnant girls came in with clean towels and buckets of water, stealing terrified glances my way.
No one had prepared me for any of this, and I didn’t really understand what was happening to my body, but I’d told myself I wasn’tgoing to cause a fuss or yell or scream for the whole house to hear, that I was going to get through this and move on. But I couldn’t control myself. The pain became so intense it made me vomit. At times I thought I’d pass out from the agony, and I hoped I would, that I would just wake up when all this was over, but the nuns gave me smelling salts to revive me when I felt faint, and when the doctor came, he gave me a combination of morphine and scopolamine, which dulled the pain and made me woozy. I pushed and pushed and pushed, as they told me to, and the girls took away blood-soaked towels, returning with clean ones.
“There’s a lot of blood,” the doctor kept saying. “Bring more water.”
The morphine made me hot and sweaty and then cold and delirious; I was in and out of consciousness.
“Wake her up!” I’d hear someone yell, and I’d be jolted back to consciousness with the smelling salts.
“Push!” the doctor yelled. He sounded desperate, and I knew something was wrong. “Harder, push now!” He placed his hands on my stomach and pressed down. I screamed in pain.
Finally, I felt it happening. It was excruciating, but I knew it was almost over now, so I gave it all I had until I heard the sound of catlike cries.
“It’s a girl,” someone said, and I felt so relieved, but I could feel myself slipping into sleep again. The baby was wrapped and cleaned and brought to me briefly. When I held her she seemed so small and fragile; she looked at me and stopped crying for a moment, her deep blue eyes searching, confused, seeing things for the very first time.
“No time for that,” the doctor said. “Get her to the bed!” And I was picked up under the arms and shuffled to a bed nearby where they frantically stuffed towels between my legs.
When I awoke, I’d been moved to the recovery room, and Sister Margaret sat in a chair by my bed. She was holding the baby in her arms.
“Thank the Lord,” she said, standing. “She’s awake.”
I looked at the tiny bundle in her arms, wrapped in a blanket and fast asleep.
“What happened?” I asked, my throat hoarse. She brought a glass of water to my lips and I gulped it down.
“You’ve been asleep for two full days, we couldn’t wake you,” she said. It felt as if it had been longer. The doctor came over and took my temperature, looked in my eyes, listened to my heart.
“You’ve been very lucky,” he said finally. “You had childbed fever. Many women don’t make it through that, but the fever seems to have broken.” He looked at me seriously.
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?”
“We’ll have to monitor you for a few more days.” He looked from me to Sister Margaret as if there were something else. “You hemorrhaged a lot of blood. There was a rupture in the uterus. We were able to stop the bleeding, but I’m afraid it’s done a significant amount of damage.”
“What does that mean?”
“Miss McCormick, it means you won’t be able to have any more children. Your uterus is torn.”
I’d thought, from his tone, that he was going to tell me I was dying.
“What about the baby?” I tried to get out of bed to get a look at her again. When I tried, the pain wouldn’t let me. “The baby’s okay, though, isn’t she?”
“Yes, yes,” the nun reassured me. I strained to sit up and see her face and felt a tremendous amount of love for the little creature, not quite like a mother, I supposed, but as if she were my baby sister. Her tiny features, her pink hands, her dark wisp of hair. I wondered if it was only relief that she was out in the world now and safe. I squeezed my eyes shut. Was she safe? She was so tiny, fragile, helpless. What would become of her?
“Is she going to live?”
“Yes,” the doctor said. “She’s perfectly healthy.”
“Good,” I said, trying to remain practical. “And me?” I asked, forcing myself to change the subject. “Will I live, too?”
“Yes,” the doctor said, almost cracking a smile. “Yes, Miss McCormick, you’re going to live. I just had to inform you of the news…” He paused and regained his serious expression. “The news that you won’t be—”
“I understand, thank you, I understand that,” I said. “It’s okay.”
The truth was, at the time I thought that it would be. I’d never even considered becoming a mother before, so the news that I couldn’t go through all this again wasn’t as devastating as they might have expected it to be. I’d been so focused on everything else that life had to offer. As the pregnancy had progressed and my stomach had grown, I’d felt a tremendous amount of responsibility to this baby, to make sure it was healthy and do my best to find her a good home, but I hadn’t considered changing my mind about the adoption. If I did, I’d be alone, I’d be disowned by my family, I’d be poor, and that was no way to raise a child. Anytime my mind wandered into those murky waters, I had reminded myself of this.
It was a full week before I was strong enough to walk around unaccompanied, and once the baby was deemed to be in good health and cleared of any abnormalities or deformities, which would have made it too difficult for them to find adoptive parents, I was told by Sister Frances it was time to leave. Tall and masculine looking in her black-and-white nun’s habit, Sister Frances wore thick glasses and had yellowing teeth.
“What will she drink if I just leave like this?” I asked.
