The "Middle Wife"

This particular story has made the rounds on the internet and I wanted to share it with all of you.  But first I went to Snopes.com and found that it was originally an excerpt from a book called, I’ll Never Have Sex with You Again! Tales from the Delivery Room.

It was reported by a Miami elementary school teacher named Betsy.  I hope you enjoy the story as much as I did.

The “Middle Wife”

I've been teaching now for about fifteen years. I have two kids myself, but the best birth story I know is the one I saw in my own second-grade classroom a few years ago.

Usually show-and-tell is pretty tame. Kids bring in pet tortoises, model airplanes, pictures of fish they catch, stuff like that. And I never, ever place any boundaries or limitations on them. If they want to lug it in to school and talk about it, they're welcome.

Well, one day this little girl, Erica, a very bright, very outgoing kid, takes her turn and waddles up to the front of the class with a pillow stuffed under her sweater. She holds up a snapshot of an infant. “This is Luke, my baby brother, and I'm going to tell you about his birthday. First, Mum and Dad made him as a symbol of their love, and then Dad put a seed in my Mum's tummy, and Luke grew in there. He ate for nine months through an umbrella cord.” 

She's standing there with her hands on the pillow, and I'm trying not to laugh and wishing I had my camcorder with me. The kids are watching her in amazement.

“Then, about two Saturdays ago, my Mother starts going, 'Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh!’”  Erica puts a hand behind her back and groans. “She walked around the house for, like an hour, 'Oh, oh, oh!'” Now this kid is doing this hysterical duck walk holding her back and groaning.

“My father called the middle wife. She delivers babies, but she doesn't have a sign on the car like the Domino's man. They got my Mum to lay down in bed like this.” Then Erica lies down with her back against the wall.

“And then, pop! My mother had this bag of water she kept in there in case he got thirsty, and it just blew up and spilled all over the bed, like psshhheew!”  This kid had her legs spread with her little hands miming water flowing away. It was too much!

“Then the middle wife starts saying 'push, push,' and 'breathe, breathe’. They started counting, but they never even got past ten. Then, all of a sudden, out comes my brother. He was covered in yucky stuff they said was from the play-center, so there must be a lot of stuff inside there.

Then Erica stood up, took a big theatrical bow and returned to her seat. I'm sure I applauded the loudest. Ever since then, when it's show-and-tell day, I bring my camcorder, just in case another Erica comes along.