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Yes, boys all love me!
But we don’t need them no, no, no!
That worked! We started laughing and couldn’t stop. We sang it again and again, laughing at the same time. Sadie turned around and did her whinny then hee-haw noise. She was laughing with us! By the time we got to town, my sides and back hurt from laughing and bouncing.
I told Dianne we better stop, because this baby was jumping all around in my tummy. And the laughing was making me pee. Dianne said, “That baby is singing with us! That proves it! It’s a girl!”
As Sadie pulled up to the general store, I realized I was not just peeing. It was a lot more, and it was pooling around my feet in the wagon. “Look, Dianne!” I said.
Dianne gasped and said, “This is what Momma called breaking water. The baby will come soon! We need to get to the doctor!”
“No, I think I can wait. I don’t feel the pains yet. The baby won’t come until the pains start. You take the list and the money and get the things we need in the store,” I instructed. “I can’t get up and have everybody see me all wet.”
Dianne jumped down, then turned to me and said, “I’ll hurry, Ethel. I am so excited! We are going to meet this child today!”
Dianne did hurry, and it was a good thing because before she got back to the wagon I felt a pain. About fifteen minutes later, I felt another one. This one really hurt. When Dianne got to the wagon, she saw a look on my face that must have scared her. She threw the bags into the back of the wagon and jumped up beside me. With her eyes wide and bulging, she said, “Are we going to see Dr. Walker now?”
I said, “Yeah, maybe we should. It will take more time to get home, and then someone will need to come get the doctor if I have trouble.” Sadie must have known what was going on. As Dianne commanded “Yee Haw,” Sadie began to trot. Sadie never went anywhere fast, but now she was running up the road. We got to Dr. Walker’s house in no time. Dianne pulled on the reins and yelled, “Whoa, Sadie!” We almost passed the house before Sadie could stop.
Dianne tied Sadie’s reins to the railing and dashed around to my side of the wagon all the while yelling, “Hey, Doc! Hey, Doc, I need help here! Doctor, please come outside! We’re going to have a baby!”
I told her to shush. “We don’t need the whole town hearing this! I can walk, I’m not an invalid.”
But she was right. I needed help getting down from the wagon. A pain shot through my back just as I was stepping down, and I fell to the ground. “Doggone it! With the water and the dirt, I look a mess!”
Dianne helped me get up, and we walked into the doctor’s office. His wife, who runs the business and helps the doc as a nurse, came into the front room. She took one look at me and said, “Lord, child, did you drag yourself here?”
“No, Mrs. Walker, Sadie brought us. I just thought I’d sit a minute after getting off the wagon,” I said, trying to bring a little humor.
“Let’s get you cleaned up and in a gown. You can’t have a baby looking like a yard rat!” She meant it to be funny, but it made me mad. I gave a look to Dianne. “Mrs. Walker, we can do this. You don’t have to stay,” I said.
“Yes, I do,” she said. “I need to get things ready.”
Once I was washed up and in some clean clothes, Dianne grabbed my arm to get me boosted up on the wooden table covered in sheets. Another pain hit. I screamed bloody murder.
Mrs. Walker flew open the door and yelled, “We need the doctor in here right now!”
Dr. Walker finally came. He said, “Okay, okay. Calm down. Someone as young as Ethel will not have that baby quickly. Someone as young as she goes through a lengthy labor period. Dianne, you will have time to go down and get her momma.”
Mrs. Walker said, “I think this baby wants out. Ethel’s water already broke through, and her pains are ten minutes apart.”
Dianne said she wasn’t going to leave me, no matter what. Doc stepped in the next room and called to his son, “Philip, I need you. Take the wagon out front down to the Nash house and get Ethel’s mother. Don’t do anything to worry Mrs. Nash. Ethel will be fine. Tell her it looks like she might have a grandbaby soon, and she should come along.”
Evidently Philip was used to this because I could hear him running out the back door and around to the wagon.
The doctor did his examination and said, “Whoa, baby! Slow down! We aren’t quite prepared!” He started rummaging through the cabinet and asked his wife how quickly she could get things ready.
“I am ready,” she said.
The next pain was a huge one. Dianne said I screamed like a wild animal. The doctor yelled at me, “Don’t push!” My response was, “How the heck do I do that! This dang baby won’t stay in!” With the next gigantic pain, I passed out. I don’t remember anything else.
Dianne told me later it was a good thing I could not see it. She said, “You must have busted a geyser loose! Blood came out almost as much as the water! And when that baby slid out, the doctor was hardly ready to catch it. I screamed in sympathy and fear for you, Ethel. Then the doctor yelled at me—GET OUT!”
As Dianne tells the story, she figured she should leave the room. The doc didn’t need two passed out women on his hands. Just then Momma burst through the door and yelled to the doc, “What in the Sam Hill is going on! Help her, Doc, she’s bleeding too much! She is just a baby herself!” Dianne changed her mind and decided to stay in the room so Momma would not hurt the doctor. Later Momma claimed she would never have cursed at a doctor. I knew she did because Dianne said so.
Mrs. Walker evidently tended to the baby. Momma and Doc tended to me. I didn’t really care who did what, ’cause I was out like a light at midnight. Momma said she heard a smack to the baby and then a loud baby cry. Momma and Dianne looked over at the baby. Dianne shouted, “Thank God! It’s a girl!”
“Listen to that voice,” Momma said.
