Featured, Writer's Showcase
Kyle Katz, You’ve been THORNED by Proxy
Jun
Well, my name’s not really Proxy, but in the absence of the Great Thorner himself, I’m going to post a story our very own Kyle Katz posted to Facebook this morning. This story is funny, touching, beautifully written, TRUE, and just down right one of Kyle’s best works. It may be wrong to post it without her permission, but what the heck, Thorn gets sued, not me…….
So, here for you to enjoy as much or more than those of us who are Kyle’s Facebook family, is Kyle Katz doing what she does best. And her story is now presented to her AWwYP family.
Here come da Judge…………………
Drug Free Baby…
by Kyle Katz
The nurses scurried around desperately trying to locate a squatting bar, so I could push the baby out- naturally. The Bradley method emphasized that pregnancy was not a disease, but a natural process of life. You didn’t need drugs. You didn’t need an appointment to have a baby cut from your womb, the baby would know when to arrive.” I ploughed into discomfort preparing for my excruciating, burning push, drug free, while squatting, listening to music, sipping on a jug of green drink. The night before, I craved one more bite of protein. “ Don’t! That steak will just sit there.” My vegetarian, surfer husband was horrified. I replied with a piece of medium rare hanging from my lips, like a primitive warrior, growling and daring him to even touch my food. “You touch my food, your surfing days are over!” The feeling of fullness paled in comparison to swallowing the world itself and wondering if this late in the game, this middle-aged woman could successfully have a baby without drugs. The back end of life started tracking me down. I started to receive old peoples stuff, like brochures of motorized wheel chairs, sample fiber bars that wouldn’t get stuck in your dentures, specially designed showers with a toll booth seat, followed by a discount on a burial plot… if I died now!
I protested. “I’m not ready yet! You’ve got the wrong address. Stop sending me stuff I’m eligible for. I’m having a baby.” Life’s intensity– my son– squeezed himself into daybreak.”Times up. Get out!” I screamed. “This fucking hurts,” while holding on to my insides. I woke the dead. Even the nights razor-edged darkness, howled for its mama. “Oh God, where’s the drugs? Get me the juice!” My command echoed through out the hospital corridors. “Remember honey, no drugs. Drug free baby. Just visualize the waves, you’re at the peak now…it will subside.” Damn surfers. I’d like to visualize those waves, feeling up your lungs, so you don’t say another word to me. The calm did come for a short moment. I thought about that lovely girl in the red vest, whose nametag read, Meg “ask me.” I was seven months along. A comfy oversized sweatshirt with an elephant balancing a ball, was my fashion statement for many months. Excuse me, but could you tell me where the diaper aisle is? I thought I’d stock up.” “Sure, follow me.” Such a sweet young girl, I thought. Reality punched me in the stomach, when I realize she left me standing in front of an entire shelf dedicated to awfully big adult diapers. I laughed hysterically. Then I cried. My last contraction: The vast halo of love and bliss encompassing natural childbirth, cannot touch words or even translate what I cannot explain. I would have never known how soulfully alive I could feel if I hadn’t the courage and faith to embrace contradictions-giving a miraculous natural birth… against all odds. Drug free. Epilogue: Notes from my son. Yes mother, we are both getting more weary and annoyed of each other…what do you expect… I’m thirteen! “Get me the juice!” I scream!
Natural child girth. How else can you lose so much weight so quickly. Apparently KYLE does know squat! And yes, I am still around.
Love this story and we’re ALL glad you’re still here to enjoy it with us. It takes a village……
By adopting!
When I read this I felt so many things, most of it liminal and subliminal. Thank you for sharing this so I could read it again.
Please don’t forget. This was a personal choice. If I had needed a C-section or ‘the juice’ and Judge was in danger or myself, that would have happened without hesitation. A side note. We were waiting for the placenta to come out naturally. After an hour it did not and the doctor said it was stuck to my uterus wall. No time for numbing. Hands went up and yanked it out. I had never been in so much pain as I watched the impression of a fist digging and pulling. They had to do it twice.I kept the placenta and buried it in he roots of my rubber tree. Now go have lunch!
I had a Turkey Melt with lots of moving onions and cheese. Yum! You are a champion, a woman, a MOM.
Such a pleasure to be THORNED twice in one month…and it doesn’t even hurt. I feel so special!
Well now could ANYTHING hurt after pushing a watermelon out of yourself. I mean, dang!
My first wife attempted the red badge of courage and lasted exactly two point two seconds into her first contraction. After that, and after calling me, the good husband who elected himself to be by her hospital side through the birthing, everything foul and evil and responsible for this blight in her life of which I assume she was referring to our marriage, the staff at the hospital was seen dragnetting the lower side of the tracks looking for street meds to supplement their depleted inventory. Her doctor stopped coming by to check on her, but I caught him peeking in through the corner of the window in the door. He was not looking at her, he was looking at me with a sad sympathetic smirk that told me clearly I was the better man to stick around in her room where the air had turned into a goo of wailing and nashing of teeth. The thought occured that the only way I was going to survive this was to highjack one of those morphine drips for myself. Just a push of the button or two and I could ignore the fantastic, creative abuse running from her mouth. She looked like the girl in the bed from the movie The Exorcist with similar voice over inflection.
As the mental images fade through enough time and drugs of my own, I must commend the women who have trail-blazed a new era of child birth and sticking to it. Common sense is the wizard who teaches that a healthy earth-positive baby begins at conception and that the mother’s road is a natural course following the steps of the old timers who birthed before we were born. I am not surprised at Kyle’s efforts. She is a sister-in-arms.
Men that stay in that room are the undying heroes, because if you say the wrong thing, you’d certainly be dead. It’s always a treat to hear the other side of the screams,(yours not hers) What men must go through to see the vision of every part of the women they love being flung around the room like a batch of seaweed. maybe more men should write their story. A contest maybe?
Got me laughing! And happy … that I am not a woman giving birth! You are a howl, Kyle! And tough! I can see John Wayne fainting in heaven at the thought of it.