Birth. We all go through it, but not always in the same way. This episode of Real Stories MKE features stories from Stacey Williams-Ng, LaRoyce Patterson, and Linda Cieslik. Real Stories MKE is hosted by Kim Shine and Joel Dresang with support from producer Jasmine Gonzalez and audio engineer Sam Woods.
Episode transcript below from Ex Fabula's Real Stories MKE series.
Kim Shine
Welcome to Real Stories MKE, brought to you as part of Ex Fabula's mission to connect Milwaukee through real stories. I'm Kim Shine.
Joel Dresang
And I'm Joel Dresang. Ex Fabula believes that everyone has personal stories worth sharing, so it runs workshops to help community members build storytelling skills and confidence. And Ex Fabula hosts StorySlams, where people can tell their true stories on stage. In this episode of Real Stories MKE, we're sharing three of those memorable stories.
Kim Shine
That is right, and our theme is Birth. It is something that happens to all of us, but always not in the same way. We're brought into this world, and the beginning of our life story will always be intertwined with our parents. The stories in this episode, they deal with adoption, complications, and one very long labor. They're experiences that have all sparked forever memories and lasting love.
Joel Dresang
You know Kim, I just wanted to share that my wife, when we had our first child, went through a very long labor.
Kim Shine
Oh, my goodness.
Joel Dresang
Over 30 hours. There was a lot of pain. It, I was traumatized by it. I really was,
Kim Shine
Yeah.
Joel Dresang
The, the staff was, was great, but there was just no taking the trepidation out of me, I'd never been in that sort of an experience before. My, my wife was suffering, and I couldn't do anything about it.
Kim Shine
Right.
Joel Dresang
You know, she didn't get an epidural. She didn't want an epidural, so she had—
Kim Shine
She's a powerhouse, okay?
Joel Dresang
—less pain relief, I know, yes, yes. At the end of it, when we had this beautiful baby, and she's recovering. And I looked at her, and I said, "So do you want to do this again?" She said, "Not today."
Kim Shine
I love that. I wonder what my mom was thinking after she had me, because her stories, she would tell me that everything I guess was fine at first, and then at the eleventh hour, whatever, I turned around and I did not want to come out. So, so my mom, she had a trying labor as well. But here we are. We've got good things to show for it. Well, Joel, our first birth story comes from Stacey Williams-Ng. Now, after years of curiosity and not a lot of encouragement from her relatives, a very chance encounter led to her finding her birth mother. She told this at a 2010 Slam. Here's Stacey.
Stacey Williams-Ng
I met my mother for the first time, when I was 21 years old. So, I'm going to tell you that story. I always knew I was adopted. I was adopted at birth, which is already pretty lucky. I was an unwanted child, and I had a great family, so I could stop there, and I'd be lucky. But you know, my parents tried to do everything they could for me. They tried to spoil me rotten within their means, but the one thing they wouldn't give me was any information about my birth and about where I came from. And you know, this is important to all of us. This is primal. It was something I always wanted, especially when you're a teenager and your parents are really square and you're like, I am so not their kid. We all feel that way. But I could say that like, I could be like, "You know what? You're not even my mom." But they wouldn't tell me anything. And one night, we were at a steak restaurant, and I really pushed it. I said, "I want you to tell me everything you know about my birth mother," and my mother wouldn't let me. She just wouldn't. She wouldn't let up.
Stacey Williams-Ng
She said, "You can't do this. You can't just go to somebody's house and ring their doorbell and say I'm your kid. You could ruin her marriage. You could ruin her life. You have no right." And so, I had to sign a solemn vow, basically, with my mother, that I would never do that.
Stacey Williams-Ng
And, uh, and then after that dinner was over, because obviously that conversation was going nowhere, my father took me aside—I think my mom was in the bathroom or something—and my dad took me aside, and he said, "You know, I never knew who my father was. I know what you're feeling, and I can tell you that she went to Bartlett High School"—and that meant a lot to me, because I went to that same high school, and he said—"and her name was Gail Patrick." And that name meant nothing to me, like it means nothing to you, but I definitely internalized it. And my dad said, "I bet if you went to their library and looked at their yearbooks, you might find something."
Stacey Williams-Ng
And the very next opportunity, I went to the library, and I looked at the yearbooks, and it took me less than an hour to find a picture of my own mother. And when I did that, I was 18 years old, and in that picture, she was 18 years old, and it was, it was a pretty big deal. And I, I got a photocopy of that yearbook, and I kept that picture of her, and the resemblance was amazing, P.S., it was amazing. And we wore our hair the same way and everything, and, and so I, it was the first time I had seen a family resemblance.
Stacey Williams-Ng
So, a few years later, I'm sitting in a summer class, and the professor calls roll. This is in college, and he calls the name of a woman named Tina Patrick. And I'm like, ooh, that last name, Patrick, that's me. I wonder if I'm related to that lady, because she was older than the rest of us. She was in her 30s. We're all about 19, 20, 21, but she was one of those, you know, continuing ed kind of students.
Stacey Williams-Ng
So, at the first opportunity, I went over to her in the break time. And I said, "Did you say your name was Tina Patrick?
Stacey Williams-Ng
"Yeah".
Stacey Williams-Ng
And I'm like, "Yeah, so are you related to the Gail Patrick that went to Bartlett High School?"
Stacey Williams-Ng
She goes, "Yeah, Gail's my sister-in-law. How do you know Gail?" [laughter]
Stacey Williams-Ng
"She's a friend of my mom's."
Stacey Williams-Ng
And she said, "Oh, that's so funny that you would call her Gail Patrick after she's been married all these years."
Stacey Williams-Ng
And I'm like, "Yeah, I know, you know, married all these years, yeah, she's great, right?"
Stacey Williams-Ng
And she's like, "Yeah, Gail's great."
Stacey Williams-Ng
And then I went to the ladies’ room and hyperventilated. And I thought about it nonstop for the next few days. I couldn't sleep; I couldn't eat. I was crying a lot. And then it occurred to me: what luck! I swore a solemn vow that I would never go and knock on her door, but I never swore a solemn vow that her sister-in-law wouldn't call her up and say, "Guess who I met today in class?" I didn't sign that vow.
Stacey Williams-Ng
And so, the next day, I was in class, and I went up to Tina, and I said, "I need to talk to you in the hallway about Gail."
Stacey Williams-Ng
And she's like, she had this really thick Arkansas accent. She was like, "Well, if you want to talk about Gail, if you got a problem with her, I don't want to get involved."
Stacey Williams-Ng
And I said, "I don't have a problem with her, but I think we need some privacy. I just need to talk to you about something."
Stacey Williams-Ng
And I'm sure I was all sweaty, and she looked at me like I was completely insane, which I was. And we went out into the hallway, and she's like, "What?"
Stacey Williams-Ng
And I said, "Look, I'm not going to waste your time. Gail is not a friend of my mother's. Gail is my mother." [applause]
Kim Shine
That was Stacey Williams-Ng, and we do have an update from Stacey. Stacey says she's an artist and writer from Memphis, Tennessee, who made Milwaukee her home for 15 years. And she tells us more about her time in Milwaukee. She said she founded Black Cat Alley and facilitated more than 100 murals to be painted in this city. You may have seen her work around town too, such as the giant leopard on Farwell.
Joel Dresang
That's quite a legacy. Our next birth story comes from LaRoyce Patterson, after he was surprised about becoming a father to twins. LaRoyce's partner learned she was a high-risk pregnancy. His story is one of humor, fear, medicine, and resiliency. Here's LaRoyce.
LaRoyce Patterson
I was born here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I'm the youngest of five children, and my story is about my twins. Like, like, I had a rocky past growing up, so it wasn't all that, but with them, changed a whole lot for me. So, well, um, when I first found out that I was having, having my kids, I was excited. I was overwhelmed and happy because this was my first birth I ever experienced, so um. But then we was, um, we was going to the doctors and stuff. And when we, my first appointment, well, the second appointment that my kids' mother had, we was informed that they was twins.
LaRoyce Patterson
So, I kept asking the doctor, like, "Is you sure?" [laughter]
LaRoyce Patterson
"Yeah, I'm sure." I'm like, you can't be sure. Like, this, they, he's like, "Baby A and Baby B."
LaRoyce Patterson
So, I'm telling him, "That's the head and that's the bottom." [laughter]
LaRoyce Patterson
He kept telling me, like, "No, I ain't been wrong in 15 years and less." I'm like, okay, so I got excited with that. Well, when, with the twins, so I couldn't wait. I was telling everybody like, I'm having twins. I'm having twins. Everybody like twins. Like, yeah, where'd twins come from? Because we don't have them in our family.
LaRoyce Patterson
But as the, um, time went on, the complications with the birth started. So, well, um, we was going to appointments every two weeks, every two weeks with them, because one of my, um, kids had a, had a, um, problem, because the other one was eating the food from the other one. So, as time went on, with the, with the appointments and stuff, I was just so, so nervous, depressed, and down because I didn't know how to react if one of them didn't make it. So, like, like, the fifth month of the appointments, they was saying my child's mother was high risk, and one of the, um, one of the twins might not make it. So, I really was like, keep it to myself, trying to make sure everything right with her, and make sure she good and all that all the time.
LaRoyce Patterson
So, when the seventh month came, she was having labor pains, and we went to the doctors, and they told her it wasn't time for her to have them yet. So, they, they gave her us. I forgot what the shot called to not, for her not to have them because they were saying they was too early. So, they gave her that shot and a month later, month and a half later, we was getting our other kids ready for school, and she like, "I'm peeing on myself."
LaRoyce Patterson
I'm like, "So you just gonna sit there?" [laughter] She like, I'm like, "You just gonna sit there?"
LaRoyce Patterson
She like, get up and like, "Oh, wait, my water broke!" I jumped up, like, get everything. I'm throwing the car, kids in the car. When I get to the school, I'm throwing the kids in the building to the school. [laughter]
LaRoyce Patterson
So, I would, so we get to the, to the hospital, and I'm telling them, like, her water broke, she need, uh, she need a doctor.
LaRoyce Patterson
So, they like, "Hold on, wait a minute. Let's see." Like, and so the, the lady get on the, on the bed, all fours, and see she like, "Oh, I see the head!" Like, I'm trying to tell y'all, like she having a baby! So, they like, "The head! We got to get her up there quick!"
LaRoyce Patterson
So, when they, when we go up there, up to the operating room, like, I held my breath the whole time, the whole, during the whole pregnancy. So, my first one was, was the boy. He came out. She shot him damn near across the room. [laughter] She pushed it. When the doctor told her to push, she pushed like, and that doctor, it was like, glad it was a doctor at the end of the bed, because he caught him.
LaRoyce Patterson
And then, so, so, so, when it was the girl, when the girl came out, she, she didn't cry out. She didn't cry at first. So, I'm still just holding my breath until the baby's, 'til they spanked her and she cried. And that was a big relief. That was a big relief for me.
LaRoyce Patterson
So on the terms of them sitting in the hospital, on the terms of them sitting in the hospital, my boy came home first, and my daughter didn't, and she was still in the hospital, she had to get a little bit more monitoring, and at the point of time of her sitting in the hospital, her heart has stopped. [gasps] Her heart stopped, so I rushed back to the hospital because that was saying she had like a week to live.
LaRoyce Patterson
But you can't listen to her, because my baby's about to be six now. [applause] My baby six and healthy and energetic, and that was my first time seeing birth, being, a child being brought to this earth. And it was, it was, it's a great feeling, like it's a great feeling to have a kid. [applause]
Joel Dresang
That was LaRoyce Patterson. He shared his story in a 2019 StorySlam Ex Fabula had hosted in partnership with Best Babies Zone Milwaukee. That's an initiative to reduce racial disparities in infant mortality, especially in Milwaukee's Westlawn neighborhood.
Kim Shine
I really appreciated his story, and I'm glad that everything worked out.
Joel Dresang
Yes. Hey, Kim, want to do some UltraShorts?
Kim Shine
Yes, I'd like to do some UltraShorts.
Joel Dresang
Okay, so UltraShorts are very brief stories that attendees write on little slips of paper at our events, and the emcees get to read them on stage. They're usually focused on the, the theme of the event. So, let's read some.
Kim Shine
Yeah, we got some. We're your host tonight.
Joel Dresang
I've got one here from Anonymous: "My grandmother calls me the breakup baby. Apparently, I'm the result of a one-time hookup between my parents after they'd been married, separated, and divorced and put on birth control. Oh, and I'm baby number four. Needless to say, they both said, oops, after the double lines appeared."
Kim Shine
I would have loved to hear that in person with this person saying it, so, oops! And happy celebrations. We've got one from Anonymous: "When I was pregnant with our third child, a girl, I asked my four-year-old what ideas were for her sister's new name. She replied, 'Let's name her Carl.' I asked if she meant Carol, and she said, 'No, Carl.'"
Joel Dresang
I've got an UltraShort from Jory: "When my 47-year-old brother told me that he and his new wife were pursuing in vitro fertilization, he kept saying, 'As long as it's not twins, as long as it's not twins, as long as it's not twins.' They're pregnant now and it's not twins, it's triplets!" Be careful what you ask or how you ask, right?
Kim Shine
I love this episode. No lie. Well, our final birth story comes from Linda Cieslik. Now, giving birth is a mission unto itself. You've already talked about your wife, Joel, and Linda is one person who knows this all too well. Back at a 2016 Slam, she shared a humorous story of how a very long labor birthed her loved, rebellious daughter. Here's Linda.
Linda Cieslik
So, it had been a long, cold winter, and on account of some hijinks and good times back in June, I found myself on February 8, 1979, standing on the new carpet, over a puddle of bodily fluids, coming face to face with the grim reality that I was about to become a mother.
Linda Cieslik
But I did not panic. Oh no, no, no. I had control. I had been to the classes, I had seen the movies, I had talked to the ladies. I had even talked to my own mother, who tried to be of assistance, but back in her day, they had the twilight sleep, so what they did was they knocked her out for two days, and she never could quite remember my birthday. She always thought it was the day before, the day after, the actual day that was on the birth certificate. But, you know, God bless her, she tried to be of assistance, and she said, "Dear, just go with the flow. It's the, it's the most natural thing in the world. Just let nature take its course."
Linda Cieslik
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, not even Mother Nature was going to have control over me this time, because, like General Ulysses S. Grant, I had a plan, and it was a good plan. Hour one, hospital. Hour two, baby arrives. Hour three, nap. Hour four, home for cocktails. There's nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong!
Linda Cieslik
The minute my butt hit the chair, the wheelchair, and my body was propelled through the doors of the emergency room, I gave up total control of my entire existence to a bunch of strangers in scrubs. Now they could have been the custodians for all I knew, but I had to trust them. They were wearing scrubs.
Linda Cieslik
Hour 12, I'm getting a little testy, and I say to the nurse, "Excuse me, excuse me, ma'am, ma'am. Is it supposed to dig its way out? Because I think it's got a coal shovel in there."
Linda Cieslik
And she says, "Honey, don't worry. Not to worry. If things don't go quite as planned, we'll give you a little help. Sometimes baby just does not want to cooperate." Baby doesn't want to cooperate—that was a foreshadowing of the next 37 years. [laughter] No kidding.
Linda Cieslik
So, let's fast forward to hour 24. I'm so exhausted. I'm falling asleep, waking up, falling asleep, waking up. And one of those wake-up periods, I hear one of the scrubs crew say, "Oh, this is gonna take a while."
Linda Cieslik
Gonna take a while? I'm thinking, gonna take a while? What? It's already taken a while. It's freaking tomorrow. Look at me, people! Without this baggage, I'm 100 pounds soaking wet. I'm the size of a woodchuck. Does this say baby hips to you? I think not. And I'm starting to scream out loud, "Kid, kid, just come out. It's not so bad out here! There's toys, and sugar, and elephants! Just come out." And there's a woman in the next room behind the wall, and she's screaming in Spanish, and I don't know a thing she's saying. I can't understand her, but I know we're on the same page. We are.
Linda Cieslik
And then, and then, I don't know if this is coming out of my head or if I'm actually hearing it, but I hear a tiny little voice, your tiny little voice, and it says, very clearly, "War is Hell, mommy." Dear lord. It's William Tecumseh Sherman. [laughter]
Linda Cieslik
Okay, so a little while later, a very large person in scrubs comes into the room, and this man has the biggest hands I have ever seen on a human being, and he says, "Well, we're just going to go in there and take a little look." And zoink! In he goes, just like the cow service man —you know the guy that, the guy that wears the plastic glove up to his elbow? He's up there! And I'm thinking, if I have another one of these massive contractions, I'm gonna break his arm. I don't care. I do not care. [laughter]
Linda Cieslik
Then Gargantua, the vet tech, or whatever he is, he says, "Well, we're just going to give you a little something to get things moving." So, they do. And things start moving. Oh yeah, they start moving because now the kid doesn't have a coal shovel. The kid has a battering ram. It's going boom, boom, boom, boom, up against the door and the door's not opening. You get what I'm saying? It's just not going to open.
Linda Cieslik
Two in the morning, my doctor shows up. He's wearing a tuxedo. Now, for many years, I thought that I had hallucinated that, or maybe dreamed it up, but about 25 years later, I had some dealings with his son who became a physician, and I told him about that, because I thought it was funny. And he said, "Oh no, no, no, that was my sister's wedding." [laughter] Okay, so I got Frank Sinatra in the hall, and he says to the nurse, "How long has this been going on?"
Linda Cieslik
And she says, "Since Thursday."
Linda Cieslik
And then he orders up some drugs. Now these are the good drugs, because although this is a giant needle, and I get it in the spine, five minutes later, I am feeling no pain, none at all. And I'm thinking, "Where was this stuff on Thursday?"
Linda Cieslik
Then Dr. Frankie comes in and he says, "It's time for a C-section." Well, hallelujah, cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war. We are coming in, kid, and you are coming out.
Linda Cieslik
So, hour 52. I am numb from my neck—I'm serious about this, too, I'm not making this up—I am numb from my neck to my toes. I am also completely conscious and totally in control. Remember? Ulysses S. Grant here. And I say, "Put the mirrors up! I'm watching!" And the doctor says blah-blah-blah-blah-blah-blah, and the nurses are blah-blah-blah-blah-blah, and I, "Put the mirrors up! I'm watching!"
Linda Cieslik
Well, the doctor knows me, and he's like, "All right, put the mirrors up." So, I watch.
Linda Cieslik
52 hours later, on February 10th, I hear the voice of my daughter for the first time, and she's saying, "What, what? Who are you people? Why am I out here? I don't like this. It's cold, the lights are too bright. Get out of my face! I was told there would be elephants!" [laughter] And I'm thinking, maybe I got off on the wrong foot with this one. And I got to admit, there was about a 35-year-old period of, 35-year period of adjustment, but we eventually did develop a relationship much like that of William Tecumseh Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant.
Linda Cieslik
And I think Sherman said it best. He said, "I was there for Grant when he was drunk, and he was there for me when I was crazy. And now, by God, we are there for each other." Thanks for listening. [applause]
Kim Shine
That was Linda Cieslik, and we have an update from Linda, too. Linda says, "That child is now approaching the age of 50. She made it. We made it to adulthood without killing each other. We're now best friends, but like Sherman and Grant in the Civil War, we just keep fighting. She lives out of state. We visit often, and it's nice to have kids at the age where you can have cocktails with them and you can laugh about all the nasty things that happened when you were growing up."
Kim Shine
So, that's all the time we have for this episode of Real Stories MKE, but don't be sad! Ex Fabula has been at this since 2009 and there are more audio stories available at exfabula.org/radio.
Joel Dresang
And the Ex Fabula website lists upcoming storytelling workshops and StorySlams. Check it out. Attend an event. Maybe we'll get to hear one of your stories. You can also connect with Ex Fabula on Facebook and Instagram, and you can keep up with Real Stories MKE, wherever you get podcasts.
Kim Shine
So, thanks to everybody who makes this program possible, including Ex Fabula staff, storytellers, producer Jasmine Gonzalez, audio engineer Sam Woods, and the awesome team at 89.7 WUWM—
Joel Dresang
—Milwaukee's NPR.
Kim Shine
Thanks also to our funders and sponsors, who include Milwaukee Arts Board, Transfer Pizzeria and Cafe, and an Anonymous Family Foundation.
Joel Dresang
For Real Stories MKE, I'm Joel Dresang.
Kim Shine
And I'm Kim Shine. Consider telling your stories, whether they're birth related or not. We want to hear them, and thanks for listening.
