In Good Hands
By Stacy Bronec
@stacybronec
I shivered, tucking my hands into the pockets of my brand new Carhartt coveralls. Just the year before, I wore dress pants and skirts and walked the halls as a high school counselor. My old life in the city was a world away from my new life on the farm. Now, cows mooed around me, their breath turning white in the chilly barn. My husband, Rich, pitched golden straw into one of the pens, where it floated down and landed on a new calf. The calf shook its head, trying to clear away the dust.
“Hey, could you grab the hook and get the afterbirth from pen 10?” he called.
Walking to the pen, I reached in with the shepherd’s hook and yanked the slimy placenta away from the cow’s mouth. My stomach churned, and I began to dry heave. My pregnancy test had only turned positive two weeks ago, but my gag reflex was already strong. I gritted my teeth, pulled the afterbirth to the wheelbarrow, and ran outside into the fresh air.
Once I came back in, Rich leaned against the pitchfork and gestured toward the cows, “You know, if I had to deliver the baby, I could. I’ve delivered a lot of calves.”
“I’m not a cow, babe,” I rolled my eyes. “I think we’ll make it to the hospital.”
He placed his hand on my still flat belly, “Alright, but I’m just saying.”
I kissed him on the cheek. His answer reminded me of one of the reasons I fell in love with him—he was confident but never arrogant. And always true to his word.
We spent the rest of calving season together in the barn, working side by side. We were still newlyweds, and our love grew over manure and afterbirth.
That fall, I delivered our first baby. While laying on the hospital bed with our son, Rich stroked my hair and whispered, “I’m so proud of you, babe. You were amazing.” He spent the rest of the day gushing over our baby and praising me.
***
On a winter afternoon two years later, Rich came home from the barn. I was home, now with a toddler and a new baby, and I spent less and less time at the barn with him during calving season.
“How was your day?” I asked, nursing the baby in the recliner. The toddler had already made his way to the front door to greet his dad.
He hung up his wool cap. “It was good,” he said, unzipping his jacket. “A heifer calved today, and she reminded me of you.”
“Oh really?” I asked, raising an eyebrow, shifting the baby to my shoulder to burp her. “Why’s that?”
“Because she was a good mom,” he said, leaning down to kiss the top of my head.
I held his gaze, narrowing my eyes at him. I pictured the heifers I’ve seen who are not great moms, the ones that bash their calves and kick them away, refusing to let them nurse. I glanced down at my shirt covered in spit-up, and I couldn’t remember the last time I washed my hair.
I gave him a half-smile, “Thanks for thinking of me.” I passed him the baby, appreciating that he knew his way around babies and calves.
***
“Mom, how’s the baby gonna come out?” my first baby, now five years old, asked from the backseat. We were going to church, and the question came out of nowhere. Instinctively, my hand went to my growing belly, markedly bigger the third time around. I glanced over to the driver’s seat to see if Rich planned to answer. He reached over and squeezed my leg reassuringly but kept his eyes on the road.
“Well,” I paused, thinking back to the many times our kids had been in the barn, watching a cow give birth. “The baby will be born just like a cow has her calf.”
His eyes got big. “The baby’s gonna come out of your butt?!” My eyes grew to match his. I stammered, “Well. Close. But not exactly.”
Just before I corrected him with the right anatomy (and risked walking into church with the words fresh in his mind to repeat), Rich threw the gear shift into park. “We’re here!” he announced.
***
A few months later, around 5 a.m. on a spring day, I began to have contractions. My due date was nearly two weeks away, so I brushed them off, thinking they were Braxton Hicks. My mind flashed to my second pregnancy when I had been induced at 41 weeks—surely, this was not actual labor.
Dear reader, it was.
Rich asked me several times, “Are you sure you’re not in labor? Let’s just go to town and get you checked out. If you’re not, we’ll just come home.” Since this was my third pregnancy, I thought I should be sure, and I imagined how embarrassed I would feel to get to the Birth Center and be told I wasn’t in labor.
Around 8:20 a.m., I accepted this was not a false alarm, and the four of us loaded into my husband’s pickup. We bumped along the three miles of gravel road to my in-law’s house, stopping just long enough to open the back doors and let the kids get out.
Rich hit the pedal, looked down at the fuel gauge, then tapped the brake, “Do I have enough time to get gas?” he asked.
“No,” I said, glancing at the gauge, seeing there was just enough to make the 50-mile drive to town. “Just go.” I gripped the handle above my head, sitting on the edge of the seat, unable to hold still.
“This is really happening,” I whispered.
I could no longer deny reality—town suddenly seemed very far away. A wave of heat came over me, and I took off my jacket, throwing it into the backseat.
Unable to pace and walk as I had during my previous labors, I shifted back and forth between sitting on the seat and facing the back seat on my knees. With each contraction, I wrapped my arms around the seat and moaned.
Rich and I were mostly quiet. The drive went by in a blur, past all the familiar fields and bends and curves in the gravel road. He reminded me to keep breathing, and I nodded, glancing at the clock every few minutes.
The contractions ramped up, and the ability to catch my breath between each tightening of my belly became shorter and shorter. After one contraction, I sat down, breathing hard, fighting back the tears, “I can’t do this. It hurts so bad. I don’t think I do it.”
“You can do this. You’ve done it twice before. I know you can,” Rich replied.
After one contraction, I felt like I was bleeding, and I hadn’t been when we left the house. Instinct told me I needed to check—I reached down and could feel the baby’s head. Although it was still a few inches up the birth canal, the head was coming.
“I can feel the baby’s head,” I said between breaths. He nodded, his hands steady at ten and two on the steering wheel.
We continued barreling down the county road, attempting to get a call through to my midwife, but the calls kept dropping due to no cell service—one of the charms of living in the middle of nowhere. It had rained during the night, and the muddy bumps in the gravel road only accelerated my body. It felt like I needed to push, and my water broke—sending a gush of fluid all over the seat.
Friends, this is the part where I tell you I was wearing an athleisure romper. I had left the house dressed for comfort (having stretched the romper to its full capacity) and planned to get to the Birth Center and change into a gown.
So there, in the front seat of our Ford F150, I stripped off the soaking wet “onesie,” as Rich called it, and tossed it into the backseat as I glanced at the fields streaking past my window. At 8:47 a.m. Rich’s call to the midwife went through, and he told her my water had broken. He attempted to give her directions to meet us on the road, but the call dropped.
“Can you text her the road we’re on?” he asked. I grabbed my phone and typed out the road's name. She began to drive toward us from town instead of meeting us at the Birth Center.
My contractions kept coming, and I still felt the urge to push. At 9:00 a.m., we connected with my midwife again. “Do I need to do anything with the cord?” he asked.
“No, just leave it, ” she responded. It felt like they were talking about someone else.
Moments later, another contraction came, and I curled my back into the seat. Then, with one big push, I yelled and felt the baby’s head crown. I exhaled and opened my eyes—a head of dark hair was out.
“The head’s out!” I panted.
Rich pulled over onto the shoulder of the gravel road. He walked around the pickup and opened the passenger door, then climbed in, shutting the door behind him. He kneeled on the floor to face me while I was still seated, and the baby’s head was out on the seat. There wasn’t much space. My midwife’s voice came through the speakers, “Get on your hands and knees and push, Stacy,” she directed me. I was already naked from the waist down in the cab of the pickup, but putting my butt in my husband’s face? I don’t think so.
“I don’t think I can,” I breathed out.
“Get up onto the console,” Rich said. I lifted myself from the seat onto the center console in one motion—resting my back against the side of the driver’s seat—while he rolled up his sleeves.
Feeling another contraction, I bared down and pushed. And there, on the side of a gravel road in the middle of nowhere—my husband came through on the promise he made me six years earlier. The baby slid into his waiting hands.
Without a single towel or blanket on hand, we covered the baby with our coats. I slid back down onto the seat, closing my eyes. The pain was instantly gone from my body, replaced by the weight of a baby on my chest.
“Is the baby breathing?” Rich asked once he was back in the driver’s seat and he had cranked up the heater.
My midwife was still on the line, “Rub your knuckles vigorously up and down the baby’s back.” I began rubbing, and I could see the baby’s back rising and falling—the movement was tiny, but it was there.
“The baby’s breathing,” I said, sighing.
“Good. Keep driving, and I’ll meet up with you soon,” my midwife replied, disconnecting the call.
We hadn’t found out while I was pregnant if we were having a boy or a girl, and when Rich pulled the baby onto my chest, it hadn’t crossed our minds to look—we were more concerned with the baby being okay.
“Take our picture,” I nodded toward my phone. He snapped two photos, which later gave us the approximate time of birth, 9:06 a.m.
Rich started driving, and minutes later, we met my midwife on the road—she had gotten lost. We pulled over, and she opened the passenger door. Cold air rushed in the door as she quickly assessed the baby. “The baby’s pinking up and looks good; I’ll meet you at the Birth Center.”
He continued the drive to town while I clutched the slippery, warm baby on my chest, still attached by the umbilical cord. During the remaining 20 minutes of the drive, I called my parents to announce the news, unable to tell them if they had a new grandson or granddaughter.
After hanging up with my dad, I looked at Rich, “Should I see if it’s a boy or a girl?”
He nodded. I started to pick the baby up off my chest, but the baby was still slippery, and my arms felt weak—the adrenaline wearing off—and I worried about the baby getting cold by removing the jacket. We had already waited nine months; what was a few more minutes?
Then, I FaceTimed my sister, still in disbelief about what had happened. I surprised her with a baby filling the screen when just an hour earlier, I had texted her to say I might be in labor.
Once I hung up, Rich started laughing, “Did you see her face? Her jaw dropped!”
For the rest of the drive, we kept looking at each other, smiling and shaking our heads. It felt like we both let out the breath we didn’t know we were holding.
That day, a farmer and his wife delivered a baby girl on their own.
I never wanted to believe I’d be one more mama trusting him to ensure her a safe delivery, but what can I say?
I was in good hands.
Guest essay written by Stacy Bronec. Stacy is a farm wife, mama to three, and freelance writer in Montana. After almost nine years of marriage, she’s finally converted to a farmer’s schedule—early to bed, early to rise (not to farm, but to drink coffee, read, and write). Her farmer says he’s retired from delivering babies and only practices bovine midwifery these days, alongside his true passion—row crop farming. You can occasionally find her on Instagram or her website, where she uses words to make sense of the beauty and challenges of rural life.