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seen a triple birth. She felt numb with fear. Would he be healthy, like the others? There might be breathing problems, or other life-threatening difficulties derived from immature internal organs. Perhaps the placenta might come away first, leaving the baby with no maternal blood supply, or the cord might prolapse. She didn’t know if there would be one, two or three placentae. She couldn’t see inside, and she could not tell from external palpation.
    Nearly half an hour had passed since the second birth, and there was no contraction. Kathy still slept quietly, but Ruth was trembling with anxiety. ‘If this is uterine inertia, it is a serious condition, and the baby will die. Dare I risk leaving Kathy alone for ten or fifteen minutes while I go to a telephone to call the hospital?’ she asked herself. She dithered. Should I? Shouldn’t I? Which course of action would be the least dangerous?
    The situation resolved itself. In her sleep Kathy groaned in pain, and in the same instant there was a click from the electric meter and the light went out. The room was in total darkness. Ruth knew the bicycle torch was on the chest of drawers, but in trying to locate it she knocked it onto the floor, and then had to crawl around trying to find it. She could hear Kathy groaning and straining and pushing, but there was nothing she could do until she had light. She found the torch and switched it on. Kathy now lay calm and apparently asleep. Ruth went over to the bed and pulled back the blankets. A baby lay in a pool of blood, between his mother’s legs. She propped the torch on the end of the bed and picked up the baby. He was small, like the other two, but seemed perfectly formed, and even gave a little cry. She held him upside down, and he cried more loudly. ‘This is a miracle,’ Ruth thought. She cut another gauze swab into two pieces and ligated the cord, then cut the baby free from his mother. She lay him on his mother’s abdomen and covered them both to keep them warm. There was no other clothing available in the room, so she took one of the grey army blankets off the mother, cut it into pieces, wrapped a piece round the baby, and tucked him into the bottom drawer. The other pieces of blanket she tucked under and around all three babies to ensure that they were warm. Then she closed, or rather nearly closed, the drawers to keep out any draughts.
    Meanwhile, Kathy was sound asleep, her body exhausted. Ruth sat beside her and tentatively palpated the uterus – would there be another one inside? But no; the abdominal muscles and the uterus felt soft. Ruth breathed a sigh of relief, but at the same time reminded herself that labour was far from over. The third stage had to be completed, and she knew that this was frequently the most difficult and the most dangerous part of delivery. She leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. Was this a dream? Could it really be happening? She had been out the night before, followed by a busy day, and had enjoyed very little sleep in the past twenty-four hours. She very nearly dozed off, but a warning bell sounded in her brain, and she jumped up and splashed her face with cold water from the enamel jug. The shock soon focused her mind again.
    About twenty minutes had been spent wrapping and settling the babies, during which time there had been no contractions. Something had to be done. Ruth picked up the torch and shone the beam of light into the bed. The mess was quite indescribable; a great pool of blood and amniotic fluid was seeping into the uncovered mattress – and she could do nothing about it. Normally a midwife would have covered the mattress with brown paper, absorbent sheets, a rubber sheet, and on top of that more absorbents, which could be changed frequently – but she had none of these. The mess would have to stay where it was. She shone the beam of light onto Kathy’s vulva. Three cords were showing. But how many placentae would she have to deal with? It could be as