The Baby Catcher Gate

The muggy silence that hung outside my bedroom window that August night in 1982 was pierced by the telephone ringing. A baby call. My mother was a baby-catcher (a mid-wife) and whenever the call came, she went. Too young to stay at home by myself, I went with her although I wanted nothing to do with the business of labor and delivery. I planned to draw or sleep as Mother worked. But on that night, as storm clouds burst overhead knocking power out for miles around, nothing went as planned.

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