A few hours later, Lady Huang goes into labor. Grandmother still hasn’t commented on what Meiling and I almost did to White Jade, but she allows me to go with her to Lady Huang’s room anyway. She reminds me that most doctors leave the supervision of labor and delivery solely to midwives, as there is too much blood involved in these activities, and that doctors are typically called in to help only if something goes wrong.
“Personally, though, I like to assess the situation from the beginning,” Grandmother says, while we wait for the midwife and her daughter to come back to the Mansion of Golden Light. “Lady Huang has pain around her waist, which is the most obvious sign, but we can also discover labor’s arrival in a woman’s pulse. Here.” She places my fingers on Lady Huang’s wrist. “See how erratic it is? We say it feels like a bird pecking at grain or water leaking through a roof.”
For months I’ve been struggling to find the subtle characteristics of the different pulses, but now I can feel that it’s just as Grandmother says. I feel the jittery tat-a-tat. Since I’m still in trouble, I have to hide my smile. I’ve crossed another threshold.
Midwife Shi and her daughter enter. Meiling keeps her eyes down. I wonder what words of reprimand fell on her ears when they got home, but there’s no opportunity to ask. In another break with traditions followed by male doctors, Grandmother doesn’t sit behind a screen. The two of us sit on chairs in a corner of the room, while the midwife and Meiling hurry back and forth across the chamber on their big feet, sorting and arranging the things needed for the birth—a knife, a roll of string, a basin filled with water, and a portable brazier. Just as there are rules about what a woman can and cannot do during pregnancy, there are guidelines to be followed during labor. The first is that only three people should be in attendance, but that seems to apply only to those who are actively assisting the laboring woman: in this case, the midwife, Meiling, and another woman who has arrived to help and really does look like a granny.
Two servants enter, quickly spread a bed of straw in a large bronze basin, and then just as quickly leave. We wait as Lady Huang suffers through spasm after spasm, until finally Midwife Shi says, “It’s time.” She helps Lady Huang move from her bed to a squatting position above the basin. Lady Huang reaches for the rope that hangs from the ceiling. She holds tight as the place between her legs bulges. She closes her eyes and moans. Meiling and the old woman support Lady Huang on each side of her waist. Midwife Shi moves behind Lady Huang, with her hands underneath the childbirth gate, ready to catch the baby.
“Tell me if the good lady starts to droop,” the midwife requests of those in the room. “We cannot let any part of her touch the straw. Why is this, Meiling?”
“Bad influences can creep inside her,” Meiling answers. “She could get infant-cord rigidity.”
I glance questioningly at Grandmother, who explains, “?‘Squatting on straw’—by that I mean labor—is a time for death to visit a woman. Her body is forced open as she gives birth, allowing Cold and Wind to invade her. If infant-cord rigidity creeps inside a woman, her back will become stiff and eventually bend backward like a bow. Her jaw will lock until death relieves her agony. You will recognize the symptoms if you see them.”
Lady Huang grunts and groans. What’s happening at the childbirth gate doesn’t seem all that slippery to me. Just the opposite. Several times I have to shut my eyes. The head comes out face toward the back, looking up at Midwife Shi. Meiling and the other granny keep their hands firm on Lady Huang’s waist as she pushes out the baby’s shoulders. The rest of it slips out, finally, in a whoosh. I can’t see if it’s a boy or a girl. Grandmother doesn’t inquire as to the baby’s sex, and neither does Lady Huang. Grandmother warned me about this ahead of time. It is taboo for anyone in the birth chamber to ask this question for fear that evil spirits will hear the answer and swoop in to harm the infant.
Lady Huang continues to hang on to the rope. Midwife Shi keeps saying encouraging words. As soon as a big red blob of something falls out, Midwife Shi cuts the cord and ties it with string. Meiling lets go of Lady Huang’s waist and pushes the basin aside, managing to get some blood and other goo on her hands. Another basin is filled with warm water so Midwife Shi can wash the baby.
Meiling turns toward me. “Did you see how I helped?” She sounds proud of herself, but I’m torn. She did a good job, but polluted blood got on her. I can’t imagine it. “You and your grandmother helped too,” she says. “Mama told me that Lady Huang was heading toward bad circumstances before your grandmother’s remedies calmed her spirit and brought her health back into balance. Even I could see that.”
I can’t stop myself from bragging. “We were trying to create a slippery birth.”
Grandma’s snort and Midwife Shi’s gravelly laugh bring such warmth to my face that I think I might die. Meiling comes closer to me, reaches out, and puts her fingers on my cheeks. I should flinch away, knowing the filth that recently covered her hands, but her fingers are cool and comforting. Then I feel eyes on me. It’s Grandmother. I’m afraid she might scold me for the second time today, but she doesn’t.
“I will return every day while you’re doing the month,” Midwife Shi tells Lady Huang. Only then does she open the blanket that swaddles the newborn and reveal to us that he is a boy.
A Contract Between Two Hearts
Lady Huang is “doing the month,” which will unravel over the dangerous four weeks following birth. Her son’s umbilical cord has been dried, ground, and formed into a paste with cinnabar powder and licorice, which Grandmother has wiped across his palate, giving him some of his own root of existence to protect him from fetal poison and lengthen his life. Grandmother and I visit Lady Huang every morning to make sure she isn’t affected by noxious dew—old blood and tissue that refuses to leave the child palace. The new mother spends several hours a day squatting over a basin so that this pollution can leave her body. Grandmother and I watch for fever, convulsions, or for Lady Huang to become pensive in her emotions. We bring with us different warming medicines, and Grandmother has been strict with Cook to make sure Lady Huang is offered warming foods only. Her Blood has transformed into milk, and the baby suckles well.
Grandmother writes a summary of the case in a notebook. “Sun Simiao, the great physician of old, tracked his own illnesses and compared them to those of his patients to improve his understanding of the efficacy of different treatments,” she tells me. “By recording my cases and their outcomes, as he once did, I can look back on patients I’ve treated over the years to clarify what might work or not work in a given situation.” She shows me her entry about Lady Huang: her troubles during pregnancy, what was prescribed, what the midwife did, and how healthy the baby was when he was born. “You could keep a notebook too,” she suggests. “Your first entry could be about White Jade.”
“But I shouldn’t have done that. I should have waited for the bonesetter.” I hesitate before adding, “And we still don’t know the outcome.”
“All true. Still, the important thing is to learn from your successes and your failures.” Seeing the doubt in my eyes, she adds, “Just consider it.”
But I don’t feel comfortable writing about what happened.
Midwife Shi and Meiling come every midday to make sure Lady Huang is healing well and that her bleeding is normal. When Meiling and I are allowed to go outside to float flower petals and race leaves, I tell her Grandmother’s idea and ask what she would do.
“I would never have that problem, because I don’t know how to read or write.”
My brow rises in surprise. “Then how will you teach your sons?”
She doesn’t answer my question. Instead, she wordlessly drops the flower petals balanced on her palm. Each one takes flight, floating down in individual concentric circles to the stream below.
* * *
Midwife Shi and Meiling continue to visit to care for Lady Huang, always heedful to avoid any places in the Mansion of Golden Light where they might encounter the men of our household. Every time, Meiling and I get to go together to the garden in the fourth courtyard, just the two of us. I’ve never had a friend, and I treasure these visits. I think Meiling does too.