This weekend I was learning some new sock knitting techniques, which means I was knitting little practice socks. Really they were baby socks. I finished up a pair of blue baby socks just before we started walking to the neighboring community for a meeting. I thought it a shame I don’t know a baby small enough to wear the socks or I’d just gift them. Reyna’s little boy is too big. Anyway, off we went to a SPA meeting.

The meeting on Sunday was supposed to have taken place at our house because we needed to use the scanner to make copies of some documents, so we thought it would be easier for the three town leaders to just come over here. An hour before the meeting Don Diego called. He asked if we could possibly come over to his house instead. He said his wife was sick and he couldn’t leave her at home alone. The change in plans was a little annoying, mostly because I’d started bread dough under the assumption that it would be cooking during the meeting. I punched it down and let it rise a second time, hoped that the meeting wouldn’t take too long, and off we went.

We arrived at Don Diego’s house and everything seemed pretty chill. His wife was laying down in the back room. He walked in and out to check on her. I asked him what was wrong with his wife, Carolina. “Oh, she had a baby. It was born a few hours ago. It’s a boy.” WHAT?! hahah. I didn’t even know his wife was pregnant. We, Jaime and I, are constantly joking about how difficult it is to tell if a woman is pregnant when she wears traje. Fletch usually can’t tell at all, which makes me tease him and point out pregnant ladies so he can maybe start to spot them. Thing is, Don Diego’s wife is a gordita (not the Taco Bell kind), she’s really a chubby lady and has been the whole time we’ve known her. There’s one woman in Yulais who has ten children who I’ve thought the last few times I saw her could be pregnant again, but she’s a really tiny woman. Don Diego’s wife: not tiny. This is, however, her eleventh child, though only seven (including the new born) are alive. Whoa.

As we were sitting waiting patiently, a man walked right into the house and back into the room to talk to Diego’s wife. I asked Diego, out of both curiosity and boredom (waiting for the meeting to start) if I could see the baby. “Of course,” he said with a big smile and led me back to his wife’s bed. I recognized the man who’d just come in, though I don’t know his name. He’s a regular at our midwife meetings, but I always assumed he was part of a community health committee. He said hello to Fletch and me as he sipped his atol, “We had a good birth today. Her pains started at about 4 in the morning, and the baby was born at a quarter to seven.” He looked pleased. I wondered if this man was Diego’s father-in-law. He certainly looked old enough to be. Then Diego said, “He’s our midwife.” No way! I didn’t realize this culture allowed male midwives. I was double surprised, as was Fletch, first about the baby and then about the midwife. This whole time he’s been faithfully showing up at the midwife meetings because he IS a midwife. So here’s a picture of the male midwife, his patient, and the new baby boy who does not currently have a name–though one of the town leaders suggested they name him Jaime. hehehe.

Now I know who gets the blue baby socks I just finished. It was all very funny and surreal and a little serendipitous as well.