But for the next several months, Antoine kept a constant eye on her. He came back to the house as often as possible to check on her, and he did most of her chores for her, although she insisted that there was no need to.

“Antoine, you don't have to do that, I'm fine. It's good for me to have exercise and stay busy.”

“Who said so?” He finally took her to a doctor in Lausanne, just to reassure himself that everything was normal. The doctor reassured them both that everything was proceeding just as it should. The only thing Beata regretted frequently was that she couldn't share the news with her mother. She had tried one more letter, which had come back to her this time even more quickly. She was entirely sealed off from her family. The only family she had now was Antoine and the Zubers and, in a few months, their baby.

By Christmas, at nearly six months, Beata was enormous. She was so tiny ordinarily that the addition of a growing baby to her small frame made her look far more pregnant than she was. By the end of January, she looked as though she was having the baby any minute, and Antoine hardly let her leave the house now. He was afraid she would slip and fall on the ice and snow and miscarry. And at night, he loved lying beside her and feeling the baby kick him. He thought it was a boy, and Beata hoped it was, but Antoine insisted it didn't really matter to him. It just seemed like a boy to him because it was so gigantic. Beata was healthy and in good spirits, but she could hardly move now. She had made some clothes that accommodated her growing form, and as always Maria was astonished by her sewing talent. She made some tops and skirts and dresses from old scraps of fabric she had lying around, and even a very stylish coat from a red plaid horse blanket Walther gave her. She looked young and beautiful and healthy. And when she went to church on Sundays, Father André was delighted to see her.

More than anything, Antoine was worried about who would deliver the baby. He thought about taking her to Geneva or Lausanne to have it in a hospital there, but the reality was he couldn't afford it. There was a doctor thirty miles away, but he had no telephone, and neither did the Zubers, and when the time came, there would be no way to reach him. Driving there and back would probably take longer than delivering the baby. Beata insisted she wasn't worried about it. Maria had given birth to her own children at home, and had gone to France to be with one of her daughters when she delivered. She had sat with friends over the years, and even without any official training, she was an experienced midwife. Both women felt assured that they could handle whatever happened. Or at least that was what Beata said. She didn't want to worry Antoine, but she admitted to Maria several times that she was frightened as well. She knew virtually nothing about having a baby, and the bigger it got, the more she worried.

“It won't happen till you're ready,” Maria said confidently. “Babies know just when to come. They don't come when you're tired or sick or upset. They wait until you're feeling ready to greet them.” It sounded overly optimistic to Beata, but in the face of Maria's calm, sensible ways, she was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and believe her.

And much to her own surprise, in the last days of March, Beata found she had renewed energy. She even went to milk the cows one day, and when he found out that night, Antoine scolded her soundly.

“How can you be so foolish? What if one of them kicked you, and hurt the baby? I want you to stay home every day, and take it easy.” It worried him considerably that he could provide no comforts or safe facility for her. He could do nothing to make this easier for her, and even though she was always a good sport about it, Beata was no farm girl. She had been brought up in the lap of luxury and was a delicate city girl. From what he could gather, she had never caught a cold without seeing a doctor. And now he was expecting her to deliver a baby in a cottage in the Alps, without even the help of a nurse or a doctor.

He wrote to a friend in Geneva and asked him to send him a book on midwifery. He read it at night surreptitiously after Beata went to sleep, hoping that he could learn something that would help her. And as the final days of her pregnancy went by, he grew increasingly nervous. If nothing else, her tiny frame panicked him. What if the baby was too big to be born? There was a chapter in the book about cesarean sections, which could only be performed by a doctor. And even then both mother and infant's lives were in jeopardy, and the book admitted that often births of that nature ended in disaster. Antoine couldn't imagine anything more terrifying than losing Beata. And he didn't want to lose their baby either. It was impossible to believe that a baby of the size she was carrying could emerge successfully from such a tiny mother. Beata seemed to be growing smaller and the baby bigger by the hour.

He was sleeping fitfully the night of March 31, when he heard Beata get up and go to the bathroom.

She had grown so huge that she was wearing Maria's enormous nightgowns, which were big enough to accommodate her and the baby. She came back to bed with a yawn after a few minutes.

“Are you all right?” he whispered, looking worried. He didn't want to wake the Zubers.

“I'm fine.” She smiled sleepily at him, and settled back in bed on her side, with her back to him. She couldn't lie on her back anymore. The baby was so heavy that it made her feel as though she were suffocating. He put his arms around her, with a hand resting gently on her enormous belly and, as always, felt the baby kick him.

Antoine couldn't go back to sleep again, and this time Beata couldn't either. She turned awkwardly from one side to the other, and finally lay facing him, and he kissed her.

“I love you,” he whispered again.

“I love you, too,” she said happily, looking beautiful and contented, as her long dark hair lay spread out on her pillow. She turned her back to him then, confessed that it ached, and asked him to rub it, which he was happy to do for her, and as always he marveled at her tiny body. The only part of her that was huge was her distended belly. And as he rubbed her back, he heard her groan, which was unlike her.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked softly.

“No… I'm fine… it's nothing.” She didn't want to tell him she had been having pains since the night before. They seemed like nothing to her, and she thought it was indigestion, and now her back hurt. She was drifting back to sleep again, when he got up before dawn an hour later. He and Walther had a lot of work to do that day, and they had planned to get an early start. Beata was still dozing when he left the house with Walther, as Maria moved quietly around the kitchen.

Beata didn't emerge from their bedroom until two hours later, and when she did, she looked frightened, and came to find Maria in the kitchen. “I think some-thing's happening,” she whispered.

Maria smiled at her with a look of pleasure. “You're right on time. It's your nine-month anniversary today. Looks like we're going to have a baby.”

“I feel awful,” Beata confessed. Her back was killing her, and she felt violently nauseous, and she had a tremendous sense of downward pressure in her belly. She had the same nagging pains in her back and lower belly she'd had the night before, and it no longer felt like indigestion. “What's going to happen?” Beata looked panicked and like a child herself, as the older woman put a gentle arm around her and led her back to her bedroom.

“You're going to have a beautiful baby, Beata. That's all that will happen. I want you to lie down, and think about that. I'll be back in a minute.” She had put towels and old sheets aside for the delivery, and several tubs and washbasins, and she went to fetch them once she settled Beata back in her bed, looking anxious and wild-eyed.

“Don't leave me.”

“I'm just going out to the pantry. I'll be back in a minute.”

“Where's Antoine?” Beata was starting to panic as the first serious pain ripped through her. It caught her entirely by surprise-no one had ever told her it would be like that. It was like a butcher knife reaching up from her groin right through her belly. Her stomach felt hard as rock, and she couldn't catch her breath, as Maria held her.

“That's fine, that's fine. I'll be back in one second.” Maria ran to the kitchen, grabbed one of the tubs and began heating water, and with that she grabbed the towels and sheets she'd set aside and ran back to Beata. She was lying on her bed, looking dazed. The second pain hit her just as Maria came through the doorway, and this time Beata screamed in terror and reached out to the older woman. Maria gripped her hands, and told her not to push too soon. They had a long way to go before the baby was ready. If she pushed too early, she would exhaust herself too quickly. Beata allowed Maria to look then, but she could not see the baby. The pains she had had the night before had started things along, but the real work still lay ahead. Maria guessed that it would be many hours before Beata held her baby. She just hoped it would be easy for her. Sometimes when it was fast, it was worse, but then at least it was over. But as this was her first one, and the baby was large, Maria suspected it would be slow.

With the next pain, Beata's water broke, and flooded the towels Maria had put under her and around her. She carried them out to the kitchen and put more towels under her. But as Maria knew would happen, once her water had broken, the pains began with a vengeance. Within an hour, Beata was in agony as the pains rolled over her in waves, giving her only seconds to catch her breath between them. And when Antoine came in for lunch, before he even opened the door to the house, he heard her screaming, and came running.

“Is she all right?” he asked Maria with a look of terror.

“She's fine,” Maria said quietly. She didn't think he should be in the room, but he had walked right in, and instantly put a gentle arm around Beata.

“My poor baby… what can I do to help you?” At the sight of him, she began crying. She was terrified, but Maria staunchly refused to appear worried. The one thing she did know was that it was a big baby, but the force of the pains she was experiencing would help them. She was already in as much pain as most women when they were about to deliver, and each time Maria looked, there was no sign of the baby.

“Antoine…I can't…I can't…oh God… it's so awful…” She was gasping for air between pains, and Antoine was beside himself as he watched her.

“Go and have some lunch with Walther,” Maria said calmly, but Antoine wasn't moving.

“I'm not leaving,” he said firmly. He had done this to her, as far as he was concerned, and he was not going to leave her to face it without him, which seemed like an unusual approach to Maria. But it seemed to calm Beata a little to have him near her. She made every effort not to scream when the next pains came, and he watched her belly tighten. It was as hard as a rock when he felt it. Maria left them for a moment then, to see to Walther in the kitchen, and Antoine asked her to tell him he was going to stay with Beata until they had the baby safely delivered. She came back with a cool cloth, but it did nothing to help, as the pains continued to rip through her.

It went on that way for hours as Beata screamed endlessly. It was nearly sundown when Maria gave a victorious cry. She had finally seen the baby's head. She saw it now each time a pain came, and the patch of scalp and hair grew with each contraction. Maria and Antoine both encouraged her, but Beata no longer cared. She felt as though she was dying. She just continued to scream, barely pausing for breath. There was no relief now, as Maria told her to push as hard as she could. Beata's face contorted and turned purple as she pushed and nothing happened. Antoine couldn't believe what he was seeing, it was beyond awful, and he swore to himself and silently to her that they would never have another baby. He would never have put her through this if he had known what it would be like for her. She had been in labor all day and into the evening. And by seven o'clock, Antoine was desperate. Beata refused to push anymore, she just lay there and cried and said she couldn't.

“You have to,” the usually mild-mannered Maria shouted at her. She was watching the head come and go with each contraction, and she knew that if it took too long now, they would lose the baby. “Push!” she shouted so firmly that Beata obeyed her. “That's it! Push! Again!” She told Antoine to hold up her shoulders, and told Beata to brace her feet against the footboard. The sounds in the room were horrifying as Beata sounded as though she was being murdered. But as Antoine held her, the baby's head finally came halfway through, as Maria shouted at her to push again, and when she did this time, they heard a wail in the room that stunned them all. Beata was still screaming, but she looked at Antoine in amazement as she heard their baby. Maria told her to push again, and this time the shoulders were free, and with two more pushes, the baby lay on the bed, covered in blood, and wailing loudly. It was a girl.