“Some people bury the placenta under a tree,” Jane said. “My grandmother was originally from Sweden, and she always told us to bury it under a fruit tree if it was girl, or under a nut tree if it was a boy. We never did, though. The hospital always kept it. Said it was medical waste.”
“Well I don’t want it,” Heather said as she shifted Madison to her other breast and tried to help her latch on. “That all seems kind of gross.”
“You know,” Carol said, still focused on the afterbirth. “It’s not unusual for animals to eat the placenta after they’ve delivered. There are actually a lot of amazingly healthy components to it. Animal placenta’s are used in cosmetics and medicines; they…” Carol looked up to see all three women staring at her, wide-eyed. “You’re not that interested in hearing this, are you?”
They shook their heads in unison. “I am not eating mine,” Heather stated. “I don’t care how hungry I get.”
Carol nodded and went back to her work. It was another ten minutes before the placenta was finally delivered, sliding quietly into the bowl. “Placenta’s out,” she announced.
It was now well past midnight, and all in the room were tired. Gordon was asleep in the basement, and with things going smoothly, Ty had left before the baby had been delivered. Emma had come upstairs to check on the delivery on a regular basis, but she too had drifted off to sleep an hour before. Madison slept peacefully on her mother’s chest, leaving just the four women still awake.
“I’m exhausted. Can I go to sleep?” Heather asked.
“How are you feeling?” Carol asked, still focused on taking care of Heather and wearing a worried expression.
“Just really tired. Why?”
“Jennifer, I need you,” Carol said, her tone tense.
Jennifer moved down by Carol and noticed the placenta floating in the bowl in several inches of blood.
“Go get me another bowl,” Carol whispered. “Quick!”
Jennifer hurried into the kitchen.
Heather rose up on her elbows. “Something wrong?”
“You’re bleeding more than you should. How do you feel?”
“Just tired, like I said, and weak. I just had my first baby, you know.”
Jennifer returned from the kitchen, handing the bowl to Carol. “What now?” she asked, the color draining from her face.
“I want both of you to massage her abdomen,” Carol said, motioning to Jennifer and Jane. “Push pretty hard. Heather, your uterus hasn’t meshed back together. You’re losing quite a bit of blood. This might hurt a little.”
Jennifer saw fear darken Heather’s eyes.
“What’s happening?” Heather asked, her voice rising.
“We’ve got to stop the bleeding. Try to relax.”
Jennifer and Jane pressed on Heather’s abdomen. It was soft and pliable, having lost most of its muscle tone during the pregnancy. Heather grunted in discomfort.
“That hurts,” Heather whimpered, visibly worried.
“I don’t care. Keep doing it!” Carol demanded. “There’s still too much blood. Heather, try and tense your abdomen. Do keggles, something. Try to somehow tighten up your internal muscles.”
Heather grunted and strained, trying to help, but the blood flowed unabated.
“What do we do?” Jane mouthed as she continued to knead Heather’s stomach, watching the bowl fill with blood.
Carol shook her head and looked around the room. “I don’t know.” Panic filled her voice. “Someone give her a drink of water!”
Jennifer grabbed a cup and helped Heather drink as Jane took the baby and laid her on the box spring beside her mother.
“I feel dizzy…like the room is starting to spin,” Heather announced. “What’s happening?!”
Jennifer and Jane looked anxiously at Carol. “Keep pressing on her,” Carol insisted. “You’re losing too much blood, Heather. I can’t get it stopped.”
“You’re the doctor! Help me!”
“I’m trying,” Carol snapped back. “But I don’t know what else to do. I don’t have any drugs to give you or IVs or anything.” She raised her hand for the massaging to stop, then leaned forward and pushed her hand up into Heather’s uterus.
Heather screamed. “That hurts,” she cried, twisting sharply on the bed.
Carol probed inside the patient. She’d never done anything like this to a human before, but she’d had her arms in plenty of animals and knew what healthy tissue felt like. She quickly felt along the wall of the uterus. The first side she checked felt healthy and strong, but as she slid her hand to the other side, she felt a jagged ridge and a cleft about an inch wide and several inches long.
Heather cried out as Carol probed the tear in her uterine wall.
Carol tried to pinch the two sides of the wound together, but there was nothing solid to grasp, and the flesh slipped from her grip. Blood ran over her fingers like a faucet opened halfway as she continued trying to close the gash, an impossible task with no surgical tools.
Heather was crying and flexing her hands. “My fingers are tingling. Can’t you help me?”
Carol pulled her hand out and a gush of blood followed. She caught most of it with the bowl, the rest splashing onto the shower liner stretched over the floor. She picked up a rag lying nearby and wiped at the blood.
“What can we do?” Jennifer asked, leaning forward to resume massaging.
“You’re going to be alright,” Carol said, taking a deep breath and trying to smile. “Jane, why don’t you hand Heather her baby. That will help her relax and slow the blood flow.” She looked at Heather, who was glassy-eyed and tugging on her blanket. “You hold Madison. She needs to be with her mother.”
“Oh, thank heavens,” Jennifer said, relieved. “I was really worried there for a minute.” She smiled at Heather and dabbed some sweat from her forehead before turning back towards Carol, who was still catching the blood draining from Heather and looking scared.
“I need another bowl,” Carol whispered calmly. “Can you get that, please, Jennifer?”
Jennifer stood, her legs shaky, and ran to the kitchen. She found an old ice cream bucket and hurried back to where Heather lay.
She handed it to Carol, who looked pale and worn out. “Can I get you anything else?” Jennifer whispered.
“A miracle,” Carol whispered as she shook her head, tears welling up in her eyes.
“I’m cold,” Heather said, rubbing her baby’s back with one hand while flexing her other hand in front of her face. “Am I going to be alright?”
The room was still well over eighty degrees, but Jennifer found a blanket and draped it across Heather. “You have a beautiful baby,” she said, forcing a smile. “You did so good tonight.”
Heather smiled feebly. Her pale lips blended into her ghostly white face. “She is beautiful, isn’t she?” She saw something in Jennifer’s expression. “Am I okay? I feel so cold…so tired.”
Jennifer knelt down and kissed her forehead. “You’re a new mother. You’re perfect. Now just relax. Get some rest.”
Heather looked over at Jane, whose cheeks were streaked with tears. “Thanks for helping us today. You’re like a mother to me.”
Jane patted her hand. “And you, like a daughter to me. Just close your eyes and rest.”
Heather smiled, kissed Madison on the cheek, and closed her eyes as Carol blew out the two flickering candles on the table beside her.
CHAPTER 32
Tuesday, February 7th
Deer Creek, MT
Kyle whistled. He wasn’t good with lyrics, but he could whistle a tune, and it helped pass the time and fill the silence as he rode. Garfield had grown accustomed to his whistling now and no longer jumped at the sound. Considering the horse’s age, Kyle wondered if Garfield could jump at much of anything anymore.
That he had a horse was something to be grateful for, despite the fact that Garfield was old, worn down, and not too far removed from the glue factory. But had his route not followed the river most of the way, Kyle wasn’t sure how well having a horse would have worked out, with Garfield’s constant need to stop for water. Whether that was a Garfield thing or a characteristic of horses in general, Kyle, the inexperienced horseman, wasn’t sure. He thought back to traveling through Texas, when he went days without a water source beyond the jugs in his wagon. A camel might have worked, he mused, but he was sure a horse wouldn’t have lasted more than forty-eight hours.