Perhaps the cultural obsession with “natural” birth reflects the extent of our detachment from our bodies and from the Earth. We are so disconnected from the rest of the natural world that we don’t know what “nature” is: bodies failing, cuckoos pushing eggs out of nests, a weirdly small human pelvis and a big infant head, illness and disease, shit

The baby was offered to Rachel behind the blue curtain that kept her from seeing her own organs splayed across her chest, but she said she felt too unsteady holding her in her supine position, paralyzed from the chest down.

me. I can almost remember what my labour screams are like and I am certain they would traumatize all my children. They would make the house sound as if I was either being murdered or mustering my powers to horribly murder someone else.

The world carried women down this river so swiftly once they acknowledged they might even consider the choice. ‘Maybe’ became 2.5 in a flash. Plans to ‘go back part-time’ evaporated into fetid air. The only way to stop the slide was a firm ‘no’. Her birthday in a week. Thirty-four. Her mother and Gen were the only ones who knew. What good were birt