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16 NORTH LEEDS LANTERN THE MIRACLE 0F MAGGIE T HE “OLD DOC" sounded as if he were trying to give me the mes- sage from his office.30 miles away without using the phone. Becom- ing more and more deaf as the years of country practice took their inexorable toll. he shouted at everybody: his pa- tients, the hospital staff and even his gentle wife, still acting as his office nurse, who frequently shouted back. "This gal's only about four months along." he roared. “It's her seventh pregnancy though. and I'll feel better if she's in the hospital for her miscarriage. 'Case she bleeds or some fool thing. Handle it. will you? It's an inevitable. she's three-quarters dilated. Give her some ergot when she's through. No.1 don't need to be there! Got an office full of sick people." Maggie was on her way into our lives. I climbed the curving old stairs to the second floor of the hoSpital to tell the medical nurse to expect her new pa- tient. In the large city hospital I had left. I'd have picked up the phone. In this small rural one where l was the evening supervisor, I had learned to go to the floor. to stop and smile. to chat. to go turn down the bed. to get some fresh water and to hope for a smileâ€"from the nurse's face. Because this was an unv happy little hospital. and a most uno happy evening shift. . Everybody was related to everybody else. either by blood or marriage. Every body gossiped non stop. Everybody's problems were everybody's problems and could even be triggered because the nursery nurse hated the surgical nurse who was her sister-in-law. because the surgical nurse refused to get up and cook breakfast the way their "dear Momma" always had for her "dear bro- ther." if things got dull, the nurses for- got their own differences, remembered their blood ties and joined to disagree with any outsiders and try to make their lives miserable. The hospital manage- ment were all in this category. having been deliberately hired in an effort to get the little place on its feet financially and accredited in the Province of Ontar- io. Hospital management. of course, in- cluded the evening supervisor. There was no smile from the medical nurse tonight. I went on to the nursery to help bundle and carry babies to their mothers for the 6 o'clock feeding. This was one of my favorite treats. l indulged in it whenever I could find the time and a good excuse like tonight's overflowing maternity ward. To cuddlethese clean new little lives. to be rewarded with even their "gas pain" smiles was a real reward in this alien place. lt would be close to an hour before our new patient could arrive. Her eyes were the first thing l noticed when I opened the emergency room door. Huge. blue-black. Fringed with unlikely looking long curly eyelashes. Terrified. haunted eyes. An animal backed into a comer. Dark circles under. them told me how tired and sick she was. A complexion like whipped cream. high cheekbones and a soft mouth told me she had once been beautiful Now a layer of fat blurred all the outlines. Her husband. quiet. sullen, muttered some- thing about "seein' to the other kids" and was gone. No kiss. not even altouch on her hand. On our way to the ele'vator. she grabbed my arm. gasping with a‘conâ€" traction. and l winced from the hurt. The fingers 1 reached to hold until the rain was gone were long. slender and clean. "I didn't know four~month misses hurt this much." she muttered She definitely looked more than four months pregnant. But after six babies and too much weight gain. many of these women had poor mUSCle lone 8N3 their abdomens sagged. Fetal scans hadn't been‘heard of in that year of 1952. An hour later the nurse called to tell me she was pushing hard with her painS. which were every two minutes. and bearing down hard. With a four month miss? Definitely. Pushing. Bearing down. ‘ The six-bed ward had two vis.tors at each bed, and I suggested we move her. bed and all. into the privacy of the empty labor room. She was certainly pushing, and I could see the shiny bulge of a large bag of water as the pain ended 1 called Old Doc. “Thought she was a mite big for four months." he roared "but I've only seen her this once far this pregnancy. She’ll know,- though. You can believe her. l‘ve looked after her since she was a kid. Probably thinks she should push or something. like the other ones. No.1 don't need to come. She'll get it over with in a few minutes. Likely as soon as you stop wasting time talking to me?’ Rubbing “my ear. l went back to check her. arriving in time to have her membranes rupture allover iny clean uniform The baby's head was right he- hind. and the mother's face was twisted. into that universal birthing grimace which tells you the woman has gone to walk in that country which is'uniquely her own. There was too much pressure. too much bulging. and I grabbed a tray of sterile instruments and stuck my hands into sterile gloves. This was nofour. month fetus. The medical nurse went to; call Old Doe and tell him to get in here. The little face was purple when it emerged. and my fingers told me there was a fairly large cord wrapped tightly: around the neck. This small morsel. who had yet to take a breath. was being ef- fectively asphyxiated. The cord was too tight to slip over the head so. sighing. l clamped it in two places and cut be- tween thc clamps. Someday I'd get sued or something. Nurses didn't legally-do Nurses didn't stand around and let something potentially vialflé diE. either ‘ A gentle lift for the second snoulder. and l was holding a perfect little girl who fit neatly into the palm of my hand. her head at my wrist. limp legs dangling .at the ends of my fingers. lnstinctively i turned her over. face down. cleaning her mouth and throat with my finger, sad- dened betause this tiny life had been stopped before it ever had a chance to begin. She sneezed The limp arms and legs curled up. and a mewling. kitten cry wavered through the hushed room. She was getting pinker now. the miniature fists were flailing faster. and I could feel the deep breaths she was taking through my gloved hands. We weren't ready for a living. prema- ture infant. Our one old incubator wasn't kept plugged ln. and the labor room had no oxygen supply. I cuddled her close to me for body heat.-the medical nurse threw towels over the boiling instrument sterilizer to heat. and the nursery nurse was waiting with the oxygen turned on and a baby mask attached when I got across the hall to the deliVery room. The surgical floor nurse had glanced in.the door and was now covering the medical floor as well as her own. "Baptize her for me. nurse. please." the mother whispered. "I'm so sorry." nurses have the authority to per- form emergency baptisms. In these cases. we didn't usually name the child. leaving that for the minister or priest to do later. As I dabbled sterile water on her forehead and repeated the old phrases.'l impulsively named her “Mar- garet.” A real scrapper. she seemed to deserve a name. Wrapped in warm tow- fels.'~gulpihg oxygen.‘her wails were louder and furious. She had her moth- er‘s red hair and wide-set eyes. She also seemed to have no intention of dying. By the time Old Doc arrived. Maggie" was warm and pink in her incubator. sleeping duietly.‘Mom; Was still in the labor roomr'xobblrig. her heart om. pour-‘ in‘g ‘ou’t'the dreadful se'cret she'd kept - For close to six months. , Maggie had not been a.planned preg- nancy. Neither had her last four siblings. With eaCh conception. the husband be- came more angry. more depressed and spent more and more time at the village hotel. coming home drunk and abusive. So he had never been told about this bab . Maggie's mother had never gone to t e doctor. And she had taken every herbal tea and laxative she could think of or had heardabout. to try to "get rid of it." Two weeks before. she had started to have some spotting and had told her husband she was "having a miss, not to worry." Lo DOC'S EXAMlNATlON this 0 evening had been’brief and hur- ried. and she had assured him she was no more than four months pregnant at the most. No.'they knew nothing-about birth control. Never had. We walked quietly into the nursery. and Old Doc stared sadly down at our miniscule. sleeping Maggie. “So many of my patients." he mourned. "so many who carry around all these burdens. and half the time l can only guess at what's bothering them. They can’t know. until they're taught. and nobody's-teaching them. That woman has s'uffered iii-her own hell for six months, maybe seven. and when this baby dies, the hell's gonna' get a lot hotter.” ‘ Maggie opened one eye. clenched her fists. the fingers like little grains of rice. opened the other eye arid stared back at us from inside her glass hoLIse. ' ’ "This baby.‘ dear dootor." I said. "is not going to die." “Don't be stupid." he roared. "She weighs maybe three pounds, although 1‘ doubt it. She's been tinde'rnourishcd all her life. She's been subjected to God knows what in the Way of chemicals. and about eight hours from now. she'll run out ofa-team and stprbreathing.’ .You know it as wells; 1 do.‘S‘ome «lay. we'll save. thesebafiiu. but no: May." I staved four hours after. my shift to sit beside Maggie's incubator. The day supervisor came in four hours'early to relieve me. The nursery nurse Came back on her day off. And at 9 o’clock that night. while I was wrapping babies to go out for their bedtime feeding. Maggie stopped breathing. But we were ‘there'. and in a few seconds. after some artificial respiration. she was pink again. breathing on her own. We didn't have much to work with in those days. No tubes. no respirators. no magic blood readings to tell us about ox- ygen levels. No scans to pinpoint bleed- ing areas in tiny brains. no clicking monitors to tell us what little hearts were doing. We had a warm incubator. And some oxygen. We dropped sugar1 and water into her mouth with an eye- dropper. and, when she swallowed it. we added breast milk. pumped and donated by other new moms. We rubbed her gently with warmed oil to try to keep her tissue-paper skin in one piece; put cotton wool under her miniature heels. elbows and ankles. And we loved her. And we were there. For three weeks. 24 hours a day, somebody gave up part or all of her time off to come in and do "constant care" with our Maggie. Maggie fought right along with us. She came back so often. after almost disappearing into that eternal darkness of the grave. we almost gave up expect- ing her to do it again. But she did. Her parents never missed a day to come and stare longingly through the window at this child neither of them had wanted. They were getting proper counselling from Old Doc. and from the minister who had married them. They were finally talking to each other. des- perate to make up for the wasted years. They walked away each evening hold- ing hands. The day Maggie was three weeks old we decided she could come out of her glass house to be weighed. Two pounds. 14 ounces. Her mom was allowed to hold her for a minute. and from that day wee Maggie never looked back. Her cheeks filled out until she resembled a chipmunk. worried that the coming winter might not end. The red hair de- veloped a soft curl, and the day she graduated to a regular Crib. her parents celebrated with a cake for us. Her whole family came to take her home. Six little stairsteps. round-eyed 'and solemn at this first remembered trip to a hospital. Big grins of welcome for Maggie when they saw her. dressed like a princess. every piece hand knit by one of us. her surrogate mothers. And, as surrogate mothers. in group of women fighting for the life of a beloved child. we had become a cohesive. effi- cient hospital staff. We had learned to be proud of ourselves, proud of each other. willing to accept and make use of our individual differences. She had been our Maggie for such a short tlme to have made such an im- pact. We knew we had done our job. and done It well. Our goal had been to send her home where she belonged and to get there healthy and strong. But we would mLss her. Walk with our love. Maggie. wher- ever you go. And thank you for having made us all a little better for having known vou. 0 Our special thanks to Eleantr Thompson, who is generously allowing us to use a wide selection of. her published work. Eleanor is a regular contributer to the Kingston Whi Standard Ma azine and newspaper. She. 15 also the author of A Loving Legacy, recently published by Butternut. Press. Rideau Lakes Union Library News ATTENTION all young poets! Penguin Books is sponsoring a poetry contest for young writers between the ages of 8 and 12.. Your poem can be about anything you want, and Penguin will print between 100 and 150 winning entries in a special book in 1989. The deadline for the NUFFIN LIKE A PUFFIN Poetry Contest is June 1, 19 88 . Further information and entry forms are available from the Elgin branch - 359-5315. Our 1987 show series is now over and we appreciate the support which all the communities gave to the shows which we sponsored. If you have any comments about the shows or suggestions regarding the library sponsoring shows in the future, please let us know. The feedback will assist us in our planning. You can send your comments by mail to the Elgin branch (Box 89, Elgin, Ont. KOG 1E0), or take a note to your own branch and ask the librarian to forward it _to Elgin. ’WORK WANTED Painting; Wallpapering Repairs to Ceiling and Walls. Renovations. Stone- work. Pointed, Cement. Brickwork and Chimneys Roof Repair Shingling Chimney Sweeping Barn Painting FREE ESTIMATES FULLY lNSURED Ken Rasmussen 359-5950 bp.m. to 8 a.m.