Writer: ‘The steep price of our forbidden kiss’
March 16th, 2008
Writing in the New York Times’ Modern Love column, Kayla Rachlin Small describes the joy and anguish she felt while pursuing an intimate relationship with a man who has cystic fibrosis, a condition she shares. An excerpt:
I didn’t throw myself at Thomas in hopes of unconditional acceptance; I did it out of defiance. There was the expectation that we would choose safety over intimacy. There was the probability that had we [been] born a few years earlier, neither of us would have grown old enough to have sex. And then the ultimate snub: the possibility of reproduction.
There we were, manifestations of what people fear for their babies. If we were to conceive, our child would without question have cystic fibrosis. At times, my ambivalence about such an outcome was overcome by my longing for that baby. I wanted to provoke whispers of “How tragic” and “They should have known better” — then prove those judgments wrong.
I envisioned our child, head held proudly, endowed with a sense of O.K.-ness that our own parents hadn’t been able to give us. The three of us were all right, disease included.
So when Thomas climbed off my bed and reached for the packet in his coat pocket, I told him no, we didn’t need that.
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on Sunday, March 16th, 2008 at 6:49 am and is filed under assisted reproduction, cystic fibrosis, medicine, personal stories, prenatal diagnosis, public attitudes.
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March 16th, 2008 at 7:57 am
MOVING!! An affirmation of clear-eyed fight, of life, and of new life. You are a model for us all. Thank you, Kayla!