The Kick

Neck and neck with Nancy and Brandon,

we we had only four weeks more to go,

when you became restless and began

the kicking, so hard I worried your

foot was caught, entangled in my ribs.

I joked that you were trying to cheat,

rushing to the finish so you could win

the bet, claim the prize for being

the first out of the womb and into

your mother's joyful and eager arms

But the pain only strengthened after

you became idle late that afternoon

and a distressed call to the doctor

did not allay my fears, as he asked

“How soon can you be at the ER?”

An inflamed appendix was to blame.

They said you slept through the surgery,

but hours later, in the middle of the night,

a blood clot in my lung caused

my piercing screams of pain heard

throughout the entire maternity ward.

For the next four weeks the hospital was

our home, a bag of heparin, blood

thinner on wheels, dripped into my veins

as together we roamed the halls from

hot mid-July to parched mid-August.

Dr. Patchin and Dr. Samples

checked in on us each day and each night.

Blood was drawn every four hours,

with apologies from the night-shift

nurse for interrupting our sleep.

Dr. Patchin worried much about

me becoming depressed, so after

some tests we rode an ambulance from

the new hospital to the old one

where you were one of the last to be

born before it was shuttered for good.

But it seemed you were comfortable

in the warm protective womb and took

your time coming out, resisting three

days of pitocin-induced labor.

Even now, these 43years on

we laugh together, celebrating

our win and securing our

bond between mother and son

who so easily could have been lost,

one to a small blood clot in her lung

the other to a mournful miscarriage.

And though I tease you still about it,

we both know the kick was only a

badly-timed coincidence with a

badly infected organ.

Naida Lavon

July 2021

Judi Leff's Memoir class San Mateo CC