I begged my Mama to tell me my birth story over and over as I grew up. She always told me the exact same story.
On a wonderful, summer Thursday morning, Mama and Daddy sat down to eat breakfast. Well, Daddy sat and Mama cooked the eggs, sausage, toast; plus whatever else Daddy wanted. Big brothers sat at the table to eat, too. Daddy worked at a chemical company, and he had to be there at 8:00 am. The boys, age nine and eleven were excited about Primary Pioneer Day Parade at 10:00 a.m. that day. Mama had helped organize it this year because she volunteered teaching the children at church.
I snuggled warmly inside Mama, content to kick her every few minutes because it was getting crowded in there. You see, I wasn’t born, yet.
Mama had made Daddy his Postum. He had quit coffee after joining her church a year or so ago. She began to pour him a cup when suddenly sharp pain engulfed both sides of her belly. She froze! The hot liquid overflowed onto Daddy’s lap!
“What are you doing?” he cried.
“I’m having this baby!”
Rushing and running began! A wildly, fast car trip to the Amarillo Osteopathic Hospital followed. Mama and Daddy did not know where the emergency entrance was. Daddy swerved up to the front, left the car running in the street, and ran to the passenger side to help Mama out. She waddled toward the six tall steps outside the hospital porch, and cried out with another pain as she attempted to lift her foot to climb.
Nurses ran down the steps to help her. Mama couldn’t move, and she screamed thinking something was terribly wrong! I was in such a hurry to get out that I had wriggled my little head down toward the light. Daddy scooped her up in his arms, and carried her inside. Mama was screaming in pain while my body was shoved down a very small hallway. Meanwhile, the doctor threw his golf clubs in his car and rushed to the hospital.
Seventeen minutes after Daddy sped from our house, the doctor ran into the room in golf clothes, and no gloves; catching me as I was launched into this world!
Our family name was Kite. The doctor joked, “Well Della, were you hoping for a three stick Kite, or a two stick Kite?”
“It’s a girl!” he shouted happily.
I weighed 6lbs. 12oz, and I was bald. I was the smallest baby Mama had, yet she had the most difficult pregnancy and birth with me.
Mama told me that before she knew she was pregnant, she felt very sick. She looked so thin, and she had vomited all day for a week in addition to having an extremely heavy period. The doctor told her she was not sick, but that she was pregnant! She was excited until he added that due to her age and health, she would most certainly miscarry.
Mama pleaded for him to do something. He instructed her to stay off her feet in bed for a while and explained the risks.
At the time, women over thirty did not fare well with pregnancy; especially after a ten year break between children. He told her she would most likely miscarry and then said, “It’s probably just some monstrosity nature is trying to sluff off.”
That became Mama’s little joke as long as she lived. I was her Monstrosity, and I laughed every time she said it! Even when she lay in hospice 37 years later, I held her hand and squeezed it. I told her, “Mama, it’s okay to go. Your Monstrosity will be okay; although, I will miss you so much.”
Eclectra 