Special Delivery:
Jewish Birth Stories of Faith and Inspiration
Edited by Sarah Goldstein

Wheelchair Birth

Sima Spetner

I was in my thirty-eighth week, pregnant with number 8. I am a bit overweight, and the additional weight of the pregnancy pushed my blood pressure up, and they decided to induce labor. I was not prepared for this. The new school year would be starting in exactly one week. My blood pressure had always been a little high. Did it have to shoot up now, with September 1 only one week away? There were still books to buy, skirts to hem, and shoes to get. The children were supposed to be well into a schedule when this baby was born.

On Tuesday evening they were going to give me pitocin to get the labor going, but the baby was still high and apparently not quite ready. They decided to postpone the induction. Instead I was to have hospital “bed rest” (isn’t that a contradiction in terms?).

“For how long?” I asked.

“Until motza’ei Shabbos, and then we will see” was the reply. I was put on blood pressure medication, which helped the first day, but then it started to rise again. By motza’ei Shabbos they saw it was very high and told me I should undergo some tests, including an ultrasound.

Finding the ultrasound room was no easy task. I was in a major Jerusalem hospital, and the room was located at the far end. I would have to make my way down long passageways with the lights dimmed at that late hour. It was quite unnerving, but I had to go. I decided not to call my husband since he had his hands full as it was, taking care of the kids. An ultrasound is a fairly simple procedure. If they decided to do anything else, I would call him to come.

Throughout the days I had to be in the hospital, I kept repeating in my mind, I will be home on Tuesday when school starts. My kids are not going to start their first day of school without me! Everyone thought I was crazy. I would have to give birth by the next morning, Sunday, to be out by Tuesday, and I was far from giving birth.

Finally I arrived at the ultrasound room, only to find it locked. I was distracted by the sound of someone crying and spotted a woman sitting in a wheelchair, apparently waiting for the ultrasound technician to arrive. She was there because her labor was not progressing. They suspected that the umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby’s body, keeping it from coming out. They had sent her for an ultrasound to see if this was the cause. Whoever had wheeled her there had left her to take care of something (hopefully to find the technician). The woman had thrombosis so she was sitting with her leg bandaged. It would be impossible for her, in that condition and at her weight (almost twice my size), to wheel herself to find help.

As her contractions strengthened and became closer, I realized there was only one thing to do. “Let’s go,” I said courageously. I pushed her down those long corridors, trying to remember the way back to the delivery rooms, forgetting about my high blood pressure problem. Suddenly I felt contractions; I was in labor!

Her contractions were coming so fast that I was concentrating on finding my way back as quickly as possible. When we arrived, huffing, at the delivery rooms, the sight must have been amazing - me, in my ninth month, pushing my companion, almost double my size, and screaming, “She’s about to give birth!” The midwives tilted the chair backward, put on their gloves, and, with me still holding the wheelchair, my new friend gave birth.

Thanks to her, and the exertion of pushing the wheelchair to the other end of the hospital, I gave birth forty-five minutes later!

She was always grateful to me, and we’ve been close for over ten years. If that isn’t a nice enough ending, my newfound friend has become shomer Shabbos.

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