The Midwife
"She's delivered every baby in the village for forty years. When a young husband's wife can't conceive, the midwife offers an old remedy—one that requires his personal participation."
Mama Kulthum has delivered every baby in our village.
For forty years, her hands have been the first to touch new life. She knows the secrets of conception, of pregnancy, of birth itself. When women struggle, they come to her. When couples fail to conceive, they seek her remedies.
My wife and I have been trying for three years.
Today, we come to Mama Kulthum.
Her house smells of herbs and incense.
Sixty-two years old, massive in her traditional clothes—two-sixty of maternal authority. She's delivered three generations. She's seen everything.
"Three years," she says after my wife explains. "And nothing. No pregnancy at all."
"We've tried everything," Amina says. My wife is young, healthy, desperate for a child.
"Not everything." Mama Kulthum examines her—touch, smell, observation. "Your body is ready. The womb is healthy. The problem isn't you."
They both look at me.
"The problem," she continues, "is compatibility. Sometimes a man and woman don't... match. Their bodies work against each other."
"What can we do?" Amina asks.
"There's an old remedy. Very old. From before Islam." She pauses. "It requires the husband to be... treated. Prepared. To make his seed compatible."
"What kind of treatment?"
She looks at me directly.
"Private treatment. Between the husband and the midwife. The wife cannot be present."
Amina agrees immediately.
Three years of disappointment have made her willing to try anything. She kisses me at Mama Kulthum's door and goes to wait with her mother.
"She'll know if we've succeeded," the midwife says. "Within a month. If my treatment works."
"What treatment?"
"Come."
She leads me to a back room. Small, private, filled with herbs and jars and symbols I don't recognize. She closes the door.
"Sit."
I sit on the low bed she indicates. She begins moving around the room, gathering things.
"The compatibility problem," she explains, "is usually with the man's seed. It's too strong. Too aggressive. It attacks the woman's womb instead of fertilizing it."
"How do you fix that?"
"By mixing it with something else. Something that balances it." She sets down a bowl of dark liquid. "This is the first step. A drink to prepare your body."
I drink. It's bitter, earthy, strange.
"Now," she says, "we wait for it to work."
Within minutes, I feel different.
Warm. Relaxed. Aroused, despite the circumstances. The drink has done something to my blood, to my nerves, to parts of me I can't name.
"That's the herbs working," she says. "Opening you up. Preparing you for the treatment."
"What treatment?"
She begins unwrapping her clothes.
"The old remedy requires direct mixing. The midwife's body contains the balancing elements. They must be... transferred. To your seed."
"You're saying—"
"I'm saying that for three years, your seed has been fighting your wife's womb. Tonight, we make it stop fighting." She stands before me, bare and massive. "By mixing it with mine."
This is madness.
But the drink has made me compliant. Willing. And somewhere beneath the herbs, I've wondered about Mama Kulthum—the woman who knows every secret of the body, who's seen everything, who carries herself with an authority that demands attention.
"For Amina," she says. "For the child you both want."
"For Amina."
She pushes me back onto the bed.
She's slow and thorough.
Her hands explore my body, finding points I didn't know existed. Pressure here relaxes me. Pressure there arouses me. She knows the male body better than I know my own.
"The seed forms here," she says, touching my belly. "It's influenced by tension. By stress. By whatever blocks the flow."
"And you unblock it?"
"I prepare it." She moves lower. "Make it receptive. Ready to mix."
When she takes me in her mouth, I gasp. Her technique is unlike anything I've experienced—not pleasure for its own sake, but treatment. Medicine. Preparation.
"Not yet," she says, pulling back. "You release inside me. That's how the mixing happens."
She straddles me with the confidence of forty years.
Her weight presses down, her body engulfing mine. When she sinks onto me, I feel something shift—something the herbs have prepared, something her body receives.
"There," she breathes. "The balancing begins."
She moves slowly. Not for pleasure—for purpose. Every motion designed to mix what needs mixing, to correct what's been wrong for three years.
"The women's bodies I've known," she says, still moving. "Hundreds of them. I understand what they need. And I understand what you're giving them." She adjusts the angle. "This is how your seed should feel. This is the compatibility your wife needs."
I don't understand.
But my body does.
I release inside her.
It feels different—deeper, fuller, guided by whatever she's done. She stays still for a long moment, eyes closed, as if reading something I can't see.
"Good," she pronounces. "The mixing is complete."
"That's it?"
"For tonight." She rises, begins dressing. "You'll need three more treatments. One per week. By the fourth, your seed will be balanced."
"And then?"
"Then you go to your wife. And what's been failing for three years will finally work."
I return weekly.
Each treatment is the same—the drink, the preparation, the mixing. Each time, Mama Kulthum receives my seed and does whatever ancient alchemy she's trained in.
"You're changing," she tells me during the third treatment. "I can feel it. The aggression in your seed is softening."
"How can you feel that?"
"Forty years of experience." She moves on top of me, her rhythm steady. "A woman's body knows. It tells her everything."
After the fourth treatment, I go to Amina.
Our lovemaking is the same—but different. Something has shifted. When I release inside her, she gasps.
"That felt different."
"Different how?"
"I don't know. Just... different."
A month later, she's pregnant.
Mama Kulthum comes to confirm it, her hands on my wife's belly, her smile knowing.
"The treatment worked," she pronounces. "The seed is balanced. The womb is receptive."
Amina weeps with joy. Three years of failure, ended by an old remedy.
"Thank you," she says to the midwife. "Whatever you did—thank you."
Mama Kulthum's eyes meet mine over my wife's head.
Our secret, her look says. Forever.
My son is born nine months later.
Mama Kulthum delivers him—her hands the first to touch my child. As she places him in my arms, she whispers:
"The treatment has lasting effects. You won't have trouble again."
"And if we want more children?"
"You won't need more treatments." She smiles. "But if you ever have questions... about compatibility... about anything... you know where to find me."
I look at my son.
I look at the midwife who made him possible.
Some treatments are worth repeating.
Mkunga.
Midwife.
The one who brings life.
Through ancient remedies.
And willing bodies.