A local woman missing- Mary Kubica

Within an hour a nurse comes in to check Shelby’s progress.
“Already?” I ask when she tells me what she’s here to do. It seems
too soon for another cervical check.
“Dr. Feingold wants to know.” She goes to Shelby. “Let’s have a
look-see,” she says. She motions for Shelby to bend her knees and
open up. Shelby does as she’s told. She doesn’t know that she can
say no. She doesn’t know what I know. There isn’t any good
research that says cervical exams are absolutely necessary during
labor. They’re also not one hundred percent accurate. One person’s
measurements are not the same as the next, and they need not be
done every hour.
“Are you okay, Shelby?” I ask, my hand in the way to prevent the
nurse from touching my client without her consent. “Is it okay with
you if the nurse checks your cervix? That’s when they see how far
dilated you are. That’s what Dr. Feingold did a little while ago when
he was here,” I say, because informed consent is important. A
person should know what they’re saying yes to.
Shelby draws backward on the bed. She whimpers. “Is it going to
hurt as much as last time?”
“It might,” I say. “And it might not. It’s your call, Shelby. If you don’t
want the nurse to check, she won’t,” I tell her as the nurse pulls a
face. Shelby thinks about it. She decides. She looks to me, and
there’s an inappreciable shake of the head. “Not now,” she says.
“Not if I don’t have to.”
“It’s been barely an hour,” I say to the nurse. “It’s too soon for
another check.”
The nurse leaves. She’s not happy with me.
Shelby asks, “What if she doesn’t come back?”
This is the problem. Laboring women don’t want to piss anyone
off. Because they need them. Which means that sometimes
unnecessary things are done to a woman’s body during labor, for the
sake of convenience or efficiency. Sometimes I’m as much of a
bodyguard as anything else.
I promise her, “She’ll come back.”
Shelby doesn’t handle the contractions well. Her threshold for pain
isn’t high. I sit with her. I try and help her breathe through them. But
she’s too beside herself to breathe. She asks for her epidural. The