“Sarah, can you push any harder?” he begged her. The baby seemed to be stuck. And they had been at it for hours. It was after four o’clock, and she had been trying to push it out since just after midnight. There was no respite between the pains, she got only a few seconds each time to catch her breath and push again, and he could see that she was panicking and losing control. He gripped her legs again and spoke to her firmly. “Push again now … now … come on … that’s it … more! Sarah! Push harder!” He was shouting at her, and he was sorry for it, but there was no other way. The baby wasn’t even far enough out for him to try to maneuver it or pull it. And as he shouted at her, he could see the head come a little farther forward again. They were getting there, but it was after six o’clock, and the sun was coming up, and they weren’t there yet.
She kept pushing and trying, and by eight o’clock she was losing a lot of blood. She looked deathly pale, and the baby hadn’t moved in hours, and then he heard a stirring downstairs and he called out to anyone who might hear him. Sarah was barely conscious and her pushing had grown weaker. She just couldn’t anymore. He heard rapid footsteps on the stairs, and a moment later, he saw Emanuelle, the young girl from the hotel, with wide eyes, in a blue gingham dress and an apron.
“I came to see if I could help Madame la Duchesse with the baby.” But only William suspected that Madame la Duchesse was dying and there would be no baby. She was hemorrhaging, though not uncontrollably, but the baby wasn’t moving, and she no longer had the strength to push when the pains came. She just lay there and moaned between screams, and if they didn’t do something soon, he was going to lose them both. By then, she had been in hard labor for nine hours and gotten nowhere.
“Come quickly and help me,” he said to the girl urgently, and she stepped forward and came to the bedside without hesitation. “Have you ever delivered a baby?” He spoke to her without taking his eyes off Sarah. She was a gray color now, and her lips were slightly blue. Her eyes were rolling back in her head, and he was still talking to her and making her hear him. “Sarah, listen to me, you have to push, you have to, as hard as you can. Listen to me, Sarah. Push! Now!” He had learned to feel for the contractions by keeping a hand on her stomach. And then he spoke to the girl from the hotel again. “Do you know what to do?”
“No,” she said honestly. “I have only seen animals,” she said with a heavy French accent, but she spoke good English. “I think we must push it out for her now, or … or …” She didn’t want to tell him his wife might die, but they both knew it.
“I know. I want you to push down as hard as you can, to push the baby toward me. When I tell you to …” He was feeling for the next pain and it was already coming, as he gave a sign to the girl, and began shouting at Sarah again, and this time the baby moved more than it had in hours. Emanuelle was pushing down as hard as she could, and she was afraid that she might kill the duchess herself, but she knew they had no choice. She just kept pushing and pushing and pushing, trying to squeeze the baby out, and bring it into life, before they lost both mother and child.
“Is it coming?” she asked, and she saw Sarah open her eyes as he nodded. She seemed to be aware of them, but only for an instant, and then she sank back into her sea of pain.
“Come on, darling. Push again. Try to help us this time,” he said quietly, fighting back his own tears as she cried. Emanuelle bore down on her with her full weight and all the force she could exert this time, as William watched and prayed, and slowly … slowly… the head pushed slowly out of Sarah, and before they had freed the baby, it gave a long wail. Sarah stirred when she heard it, and looked around as though she didn’t understand what had happened.
“What’s that?” she asked groggily, staring at William.
“That’s our baby.” There were tears running down his cheeks, and Sarah began to panic as the pains started again, and she had to push some more. They still had to free the shoulders, but now William was helping, trying to get them free, as mother and child cried, and William felt his sweat mix with tears. Sarah just couldn’t help them. She was too weak, and the baby was much too large. The doctor in Chaumont had been right. She should never have tried to give birth to this child, but it was too late now. It was half born, and they had to free it from its mother at last. “Sarah! Push again!” William shouted at her this time, and Emanuelle continued to press on her abdomen until it looked like she would go right through her. But the baby inched forward again, and William got one arm out, but he couldn’t get the other. And then suddenly he remembered the puppies he had delivered so long ago. There had been one like that, and it had been terrible for the mother, but he had saved them both. The pup had been unusually large, as he could see his own child was.
And this time when the pains ripped through Sarah and she screamed, William reached inside her and gently tried to turn the baby to a different angle, while feeling gently around the shoulder, and Sarah jumped in anguish and fought him as hard as she could. “Hold her down!” he told the girl. “Don’t let her move!” Or she might kill the child. But Emanuelle held her firmly, while William forced her legs down and tried to free the baby, and then suddenly with an odd little sound, the other arm popped out, the shoulders were free, and a moment later, William delivered the rest of him. He was a boy, and he was beautiful, and absolutely enormous.
William held him aloft in the morning sun, to look at him in all his beauty, and now he knew what his mother meant when she spoke of a miracle, for truly this was one.
He carefully cut the cord, and handed the baby to the girl, while he tenderly bathed Sarah’s face with damp cloths, and tried to stop the bleeding with towels.
But this time Emanuelle knew what to do. She gently set the baby down in a little nest of blankets on the floor and came to show William. “We must press down very hard on her stomach … like so … so she will stop bleeding. I have heard my mother say this about women who have had many children.” And with that she pressed down on Sarah’s lower abdomen even harder than she had before, and kneaded it like bread as Sarah screamed weakly and begged them to stop, but he saw that the girl was right, the bleeding slowed and eventually all but stopped, except for what seemed normal to both of them.
It was noon by then, and William couldn’t believe that it had taken twelve hours to deliver their son. Twelve hours that Sarah and the baby had barely survived. She was still deathly pale, but her lips were no longer blue, and he brought the baby to her and held the baby for her so she could see him. She smiled, but she was too weak to hold him herself, and she looked up at William gratefully, instinctively knowing that he had saved them. “Thank you,” she whispered as tears rolled down her cheeks and he kissed her. He gave the baby back to Emanuelle then, and she took him downstairs to wash him and then bring him back to his mother later on. William bathed Sarah and changed the bed, and wrapped her in clean blankets and towels. She was too weak to move herself, or even to speak to him, but she watched him gratefully, and finally lay back against the pillows and drifted off to sleep. It was the worst thing William had ever seen, and at the same time the most beautiful, and he felt overwhelmed by his own emotions, as he went downstairs to make her a cup of tea and lace it with brandy. As he made it, he couldn’t resist taking a quick swallow himself.