Basic HTML Version
JULY 2012 -
SEXY X2
MAGAZINE -
47
In those days, it
was unusual that people were
born in hospitals and delivery
rooms. If this had been the case,
such birth would have certainly
been registered in medical an-
nals as a rarity, but at that time
the room where the mother usually
slept was the best place to bring a
new life into this world.
The midwife had already helped
more than two hundred children
to travel from a warm womb to
the aggressive outside of that
aquatic cradle. Out of those two
hundred and something children
some were born dead or died few
minutes after birth, hardly five or
six children were born with some
small deformity and only two of
them showed the features typical
of the tender face accompanying
the Down syndrome; the remaining
children were born big and strong.
There were white, dark skinned,
definitely redheaded, boys and
girls, in single or multiple births.
It seemed that all possible circum-
stances had already occurred in
the professional life of that woman
that wasn’t professional in the strict
academic sense.
The bed had been neatly tidied up
by the laboring woman’s mother
to provide it with all the parochial
decency required for the circum-
stances. The woman in labor had
already taken a bath and her
body smelled of the best soap
in the house. Clean and white
towels were ready on one side of
the bed on a small table that had
been covered with a woven white
linen tablecloth carefully starched.
Beside the towels, a generous jug
contained the hot water the mid-
wife had asked for a few minutes
before.
It was a clear and cloudless
midday of a warm spring though
inside the room the half-closed
shutters kept the slight dimness that
caution advised so that the intense
light did not harm the eyes of the
one who was about to be born.
At the experienced midwife’s sug-
gestion, the pregnant woman had
laid herself down crosswise the
marital bed so that any supportive
woman on one side of the bed
could hold her head at the push-
ing stage. At the same time, the
empirical midwife would receive
the child on the other side of the
bed where the mother had already
bent her knees, rested her feet
firmly on the edge of the mattress
and had her legs sufficiently open
to allow the midwife to do her job.
When labor started and the first-
time mother was seen pushing
in pain without even emitting the
slightest groan, the midwife very
quietly whispered in the ear of the
occasional towels and hot water
assistant that if the mother did not
scream or moan during labor,
the child would certainly be born
without the ability to speak.
Nobody, not even for a single
moment, doubted the diagnosis of
that woman who, without any di-
ploma, everybody acknowledged
as being as qualified as the best
doctor.
The child had already pushed his
head out of the mother’s body and
was starting to push one shoulder
out when the woman in labor
emitted an almost inaudible groan.
With a smile of relief, the midwife
looked at her previous converser
and said in a low voice: “he will
not be dumb.”
Just a few minutes later and al-
ready outside his mother, though
still linked to her by the umbilical
cord, held by both ankles and up-
side down, the innocent received,
as a welcome to the world, a
couple of firm pats on his naked
body for the only purpose of mak-
ing him cry.
It did not take long for a surprise to
surface. What was heard was not
the sharp cat-like yell of newborns.
The sound getting out of the brand
new throat was more like the hiss-
ing of a snake or the sound pro-
duced by air trying to go through
the throat of an asthmatic person
in the midst of a crisis. It was like a
radio broadcasting that cry on the
lowest volume.
The child kept crying his way;
the cord was cut; the child was
wrapped, dressed and only when
the mother put him on her chest,
rocking him tenderly, that soft
sound ceased completely.