A MIDWIFE EXPLAINS THE BABY’S POSITION
for John David
I kneel down
beside the mother.
Her baby
will come soon.
I place my
hands on her belly
to feel the
body of the baby inside.
He needs to
turn, head-down,
but he has
chosen to curl up sideways—
his hard
little head to the right,
his tiny
little feet tucked in to the left.
I tell the
mother we can try
lots of
things to help her baby to turn.
But if he
will not move before the day,
she will
need to have surgery
because
babies cannot be born
from his
position.
I explain
this as slowly
and as
reassuringly as I can.
This is the
mother’s fifth baby,
and she’s
never had a cesarean.
She nods and
is not afraid.
She tells me
she had a sense
that this
one
would be
born that way.
II.
But that
isn’t what happened.
The baby
turned
and turned
and turned
again!
Head down at
last,
and ready to
be born—
he listened
to his angel
who was
listening to God
who heard
our prayers
for a
miracle
and sent
from heaven
a command
small and soft enough
for a baby-boy
to hear,
and laughing
in the water, turn!
He was born
on a May afternoon,
sliding out
into the world
as naturally
as light shines
down to the
earth from the sky.
His father
cut the cord,
and held his
son, and gave him to his mother
who brought
him to her breast
and fed him
the milk of life with all her love.
When his
tongue was freed,
he suckled
in his strength
and began to
grow
into a
beloved child.
His mother
brought him home
to his four
sisters on Mother’s Day
and they
adored him—
the brother
who would become
a man made
in God’s own image
to the glory
of God who created him
body and
soul
to live now
and forever.
Jane Beal
May 2012
