Born Baby Girl Quotes

I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.

Pip knew a great many things; she knew that hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia was the technical term for the fear of long words, she knew that babies were born without kneecaps,

The baby, a girl, is born at 6:24 a.m. She weighs six pounds, ten ounces. The mother takes the baby in her arms and asks her, "Who are you, my little one?" And in response, this baby, who is Liz and not Liz at the same time, laughs.

I want you to trust yourself, baby. Love is all that matters and you’ve always known that. You’ve known, since you were a very little girl, what your life is meant to be about…

As he ran next to Noriko, a thought suddenly occurred to him. The screaming, their hasty footsteps, and the officer warning them to stop all receded as his mind was occupied with this thought. It might have been inappropriate. And besides… he'd ripped it off. Oh, man. But still he thought this: Together Noriko we'll live with the sadness. I'll love you with all the madness in my soul. Someday girl I don't know when we're gonna get to that place. Where we really want to go and we'll walk in the sun. But till then tramps like us baby we were born to run.

It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls. It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution. It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small. It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war. It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide among women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes. It is a violation of human rights when young girls are brutalized by the painful and degrading practice of genital mutilation. It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will. If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, it is that human rights are women's rights - and women's rights are human rights. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely - and the right to be heard. [From 'Women's Rights Are Human Rights' Speech Beijing, China: 5 September 1995]

For Jenn At 12 years old I started bleeding with the moon and beating up boys who dreamed of becoming astronauts. I fought with my knuckles white as stars, and left bruises the shape of Salem. There are things we know by heart, and things we don't. At 13 my friend Jen tried to teach me how to blow rings of smoke. I'd watch the nicotine rising from her lips like halos, but I could never make dying beautiful. The sky didn't fill with colors the night I convinced myself veins are kite strings you can only cut free. I suppose I love this life, in spite of my clenched fist. I open my palm and my lifelines look like branches from an Aspen tree, and there are songbirds perched on the tips of my fingers, and I wonder if Beethoven held his breath the first time his fingers touched the keys the same way a soldier holds his breath the first time his finger clicks the trigger. We all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe. But my lungs remember the day my mother took my hand and placed it on her belly and told me the symphony beneath was my baby sister's heartbeat. And I knew life would tremble like the first tear on a prison guard's hardened cheek, like a prayer on a dying man's lips, like a vet holding a full bottle of whisky like an empty gun in a war zone… just take me just take me Sometimes the scales themselves weigh far too much, the heaviness of forever balancing blue sky with red blood. We were all born on days when too many people died in terrible ways, but you still have to call it a birthday. You still have to fall for the prettiest girl on the playground at recess and hope she knows you can hit a baseball further than any boy in the whole third grade and I've been running for home through the windpipe of a man who sings while his hands playing washboard with a spoon on a street corner in New Orleans where every boarded up window is still painted with the words We're Coming Back like a promise to the ocean that we will always keep moving towards the music, the way Basquait slept in a cardboard box to be closer to the rain. Beauty, catch me on your tongue. Thunder, clap us open. The pupils in our eyes were not born to hide beneath their desks. Tonight lay us down to rest in the Arizona desert, then wake us washing the feet of pregnant women who climbed across the border with their bellies aimed towards the sun. I know a thousand things louder than a soldier's gun. I know the heartbeat of his mother. Don't cover your ears, Love. Don't cover your ears, Life. There is a boy writing poems in Central Park and as he writes he moves and his bones become the bars of Mandela's jail cell stretching apart, and there are men playing chess in the December cold who can't tell if the breath rising from the board is their opponents or their own, and there's a woman on the stairwell of the subway swearing she can hear Niagara Falls from her rooftop in Brooklyn, and I'm remembering how Niagara Falls is a city overrun with strip malls and traffic and vendors and one incredibly brave river that makes it all worth it. Ya'll, I know this world is far from perfect. I am not the type to mistake a streetlight for the moon. I know our wounds are deep as the Atlantic. But every ocean has a shoreline and every shoreline has a tide that is constantly returning to wake the songbirds in our hands, to wake the music in our bones, to place one fearless kiss on the mouth of that brave river that has to run through the center of our hearts to find its way home.

Leto had two beautiful babies—a boy named Apollo and a girl named Artemis. They were born on the seventh day of the seventh month,

A long time ago, when all the grandfathers and grandmothers of today were little boys and little girls or very small babies, or perhaps not even born, Pa and Ma and Mary and Laura and Baby Carrie left their little house in the Big Woods of Wisconsin

I can’t imagine it now, but I must’ve been innocent at some time in my life. A baby don’t just get itself born bad, do it?

One day I'll give birth to a tiny baby girl and when she's born she'll scream and I'll tell her to never stop I will kiss her before I lay her down at night and will tell her a story so she knows how it is and how it must be for her to survive I'll tell her to set things on fire and keep them burning I'll teach her that fire will not consume her that she must use it

Together Noriko we'll live with the sadness.I'll love you with all the madness in my soul. Someday girl I don't know when we're gonna get to that place. Where we really want to and we'll walk in the sun. But till then tramps like us baby we were born to run.

my final piece We’re born into the world As just one small piece to the puzzle That makes up an entire life. It’s up to us throughout our years, to find all of our pieces that fit. The pieces that connect who we are To who we were To who we’ll one day be. Sometimes pieces will almost fit. They’ll feel right. We’ll carry them around for a while, Hoping they’ll change shape. Hoping they’ll conform to our puzzle. But they won’t. We’ll eventually have to let them go. To find the puzzle that is their home. Sometimes pieces won’t fit at all. No matter how much we want them to. We’ll shove them. We’ll bend them. We’ll break them. But what isn’t meant to be, won’t be. Those are the hardest pieces of all to accept. The pieces of our puzzle That just don’t belong. But occasionally . . . Not very often at all, If we’re lucky, If we pay enough attention, We’ll find a perfect match. The pieces of the puzzle that slide right in The pieces that hug the contours of our own pieces. The pieces that lock to us. The pieces that we lock to. The pieces that fit so well, we can’t tell where our piece begins And that piece ends. Those pieces we call Friends. True loves. Dreams. Passions. Beliefs. Talents. They’re all the pieces that complete our puzzles. They line the edges, Frame the corners, Fill the centers, Those pieces are the pieces that make us who we are. Who we were. Who we’ll one day be. Up until today, When I looked at my own puzzle, I would see a finished piece. I had the edges lined, The corners framed, The center filled. It felt like it was complete. All the pieces were there. I had everything I wanted. Everything I needed. Everything I dreamt of. But up until today, I realized I had collected all but one piece. The most vital piece. The piece that completes the picture. The piece that completes my whole life. I held this girl in my arms She wrapped her tiny fingers around mine. It was then that I realized She was the fusion. The glue. The cement that bound all my pieces together. The piece that seals my puzzle. The piece that completes my life. The element that makes me who I am. Who I was. Who I’ll one day be. You, baby girl. You’re my final piece.

No, no, don’t touch your mother just before the baby is born. Now it will be a girl child, because you are one. Run along now. Take your evil eye with you.” “Ghias, we must be careful not to teach the girls too much. How will they ever find husbands if they are too learned? The less they know, the less they will want of the outside world.

I’m giving you to him today, baby girl. But I don’t do it lightly. You’ve had my heart since the day you were born.

Stuff. The stuff of stars. The stuff of light. The stuff of a planet before it is a planet. The stuff of a baby before it is born. The stuff of a seed before it is a sycamore. Everything you see is in the process of making or unmaking or dying or living. Everything is in a state of change.

Once upon a time there was a king who had three beautiful daughters. No, no, wait. Once upon a time there were three bears who lived in a wee house in the woods. Once upon a time there were three soldiers, tramping together down the road after the war. Once upon a time there were three little pigs. Once upon a time there were three brothers. No, this is it. This is the variation I want. Once upon a time there were three Beautiful children, two boys and a girl. When each baby was born, the parents rejoiced, the heavens rejoiced, even the fairies rejoiced. The fairies came to christening parties and gave the babies magical gifts. Bounce, effort, and snark. Contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee. Sugar, curiosity, and rain. And yet, there was a witch. There's always a witch. This which was the same age as the beautiful children, and as she and they grew, she was jealous of the girl, and jealous of the boys, too. They were blessed with all these fairy gifts, gifts the witch had been denied at her own christening. The eldest boy was strong and fast, capable and handsome. Though it's true, he was exceptionally short. The next boy was studious and open hearted. Though it's true, he was an outsider. And the girl was witty, Generous, and ethical. Though it's true, she felt powerless. The witch, she was none of these things, for her parents had angered the fairies. No gifts were ever bestowed upon her. She was lonely. Her only strength was her dark and ugly magic. She confuse being spartan with being charitable, and gave away her possessions without truly doing good with them. She confuse being sick with being brave, and suffered agonies while imagining she merited praise for it. She confused wit with intelligence, and made people laugh rather than lightening their hearts are making them think. Hey magic was all she had, and she used it to destroy what she most admired. She visited each young person in turn in their tenth birthday, but did not harm them out right. The protection of some kind fairy - the lilac fairy, perhaps - prevented her from doing so. What she did instead was cursed them. "When you are sixteen," proclaimed the witch in a rage of jealousy, "you shall prick your finger on a spindle - no, you shall strike a match - yes, you will strike a match and did in its flame." The parents of the beautiful children were frightened of the curse, and tried, as people will do, to avoid it. They moved themselves and the children far away, to a castle on a windswept Island. A castle where there were no matches. There, surely, they would be safe. There, Surely, the witch would never find them. But find them she did. And when they were fifteen, these beautiful children, just before their sixteenth birthdays and when they're nervous parents not yet expecting it, the jealous which toxic, hateful self into their lives in the shape of a blonde meeting. The maiden befriended the beautiful children. She kissed him and took them on the boat rides and brought them fudge and told them stories. Then she gave them a box of matches. The children were entranced, for nearly sixteen they have never seen fire. Go on, strike, said the witch, smiling. Fire is beautiful. Nothing bad will happen. Go on, she said, the flames will cleanse your souls. Go on, she said, for you are independent thinkers. Go on, she said. What is this life we lead, if you did not take action? And they listened. They took the matches from her and they struck them. The witch watched their beauty burn, Their bounce, Their intelligence, Their wit, Their open hearts, Their charm, Their dreams for the future. She watched it all disappear in smoke.

How could I not fall in love with him," she asked. And on the tail end of her words, her bedroom door flew open and closed just as fast. Jen bent over, panting heavily as she looked up at Sally. "Hey Sally girl. Who we falling in love with?" Jen asked breathlessly. "Jen, what's wrong?" Sally paused and then decided on a better question. "What have you done now?" Jen stood up and took two deep breaths. Seeming to have regained her wind, she spoke quickly. "First off, I've changed my mind. I don't want you to name your first born after me." Sally interrupted. "Thank goodness for that," she muttered. "I want you to name your entire freaking litter after me," Jen growled. "Do you know what I've been through?" Jen's arms were flinging around as she glared at Sally. "I did that little strip tease to try and keep things from escalating with the rest of the pack and Decebel was beyond pissed. I had to sneak out of the gathering room and make a run for it. I've been running through the freaking forest trying to throw him off by changing back and forth so that I could place my clothes that I carried in my freaking muzzle. CARRIED IN MY MUZZLE SALLY! I put them in different places to throw off him off my scent." Jen went over to Sally's window and was trying to judge the danger of using it as an exit.

I do not need to understand words to know he is disappointed I am not a boy. Some things need no translation. And I know, because my body remembers without benefit of words, that men who do not welcome girl-babies will not treasure me as I grow to woman - though he call me princess just because the Guru told him to. I have come so far, I have borne so much pain and emptiness! But men have not yet changed.

Poor little girl. Poor little girl," Nan says, and at first I think she is speaking of the baby, perhaps it is a girl after all. But then I realize she is speaking of me, a girl of thirteen years, whose own mother has said that they can let her die as long as a son and heir is born.

If you boys and girls had to sweat for your toys the way a newly born baby has to struggle to live you would be happier . . . and much richer. As it is, with some of you, I pity the poverty of your wealth.

Twenty-two months are a long time and a lot of things can happen in them- there is time for new families to be formed, for babies to be born and even begin to talk, for a great house to rise where once there was only a field, for a beautiful woman to grow old and no one desire her any more, for an illness- for a long illness- to ripen (yet men live on heedlessly), to consume the body slowly, to recede for short periods as if cured, to take hold again more deeply and drain away the last hopes; there is time for a man to die and be buried, for his son to be able to laugh again and in the evening take the girls down the avenues and past the cemetery gates without a thought. But it seemed as if Drogo’s existence had come to a halt. The same day, the same things, had repeated themselves hundreds of times without taking a step forward. The river of time flowed over the Fort, crumbled the walls, swept down dust and fragments of stone, wore away the stairs and the chain, but over Drogo it passed in vain- it had not yet succeeded in catching him, bearing him with it as it flowed.

Because the majority of the Amazon rainforest was in Brazil, Mom and Dad somehow decided to name me after the rainforest. “You were born on a rainy day, and was one of the strongest babies at the hospital,” Mom said. “How did you know?” I asked. “You had the loudest cry, which indicated how strong your lungs and heart were. And you’re a girl so we thought naming you ‘Amazon’ after the rainforest and after the mythical women warriors called Amazons, fits you so well.” Dad said. - Amazon Lee and the Ancient Undead of Rome by Kira G. and Kailin Gow

You see when a new baby laughs for the first time a new fairy is born and as there are always new babies there are always new fairies. They live in nests in the top of trees; and the mauve ones are boys and the white ones are girls, and the blue ones are just little sillies who are not sure what they are.

Sylvia Plath" A miniature mad talent? Sylvia Plath, who'll wipe off the spit of your integrity, rising in the saddle to slash at Auschwitz, life tearing this or that, I am a woman? Who'll lay the graduate girl in marriage, queen bee, naked, unqueenly, shaming her shame? Each English major saying, "I am Sylvia, I hate marriage, I must hate babies." Even men have a horror of giving birth, mother-sized babies splitting us in half, sixty thousand American infants a year, U.I.D., Unexplained Infant Deaths, born physically whole and hearty, refuse to live, Sylvia...the expanding torrent of your attack.

The stuff of stars. The stuff of light. The stuff of a planet before it is a planet. The stuff of a baby before it is born. The stuff of a seed before it is a sycamore. Everything you see is in the process of making or unmaking or dying or living. Everything is in a state of change.

Excuse me while I throw this down, I’m old and cranky and tired of hearing the idiocy repeated by people who ought to know better. Real women do not have curves. Real women do not look like just one thing. Real women have curves, and not. They are tall, and not. They are brown-skinned, and olive-skinned, and not. They have small breasts, and big ones, and no breasts whatsoever. Real women start their lives as baby girls. And as baby boys. And as babies of indeterminate biological sex whose bodies terrify their doctors and families into making all kinds of very sudden decisions. Real women have big hands and small hands and long elegant fingers and short stubby fingers and manicures and broken nails with dirt under them. Real women have armpit hair and leg hair and pubic hair and facial hair and chest hair and sexy moustaches and full, luxuriant beards. Real women have none of these things, spontaneously or as the result of intentional change. Real women are bald as eggs, by chance and by choice and by chemo. Real women have hair so long they can sit on it. Real women wear wigs and weaves and extensions and kufi and do-rags and hairnets and hijab and headscarves and hats and yarmulkes and textured rubber swim caps with the plastic flowers on the sides. Real women wear high heels and skirts. Or not. Real women are feminine and smell good and they are masculine and smell good and they are androgynous and smell good, except when they don’t smell so good, but that can be changed if desired because real women change stuff when they want to. Real women have ovaries. Unless they don’t, and sometimes they don’t because they were born that way and sometimes they don’t because they had to have their ovaries removed. Real women have uteruses, unless they don’t, see above. Real women have vaginas and clitorises and XX sex chromosomes and high estrogen levels, they ovulate and menstruate and can get pregnant and have babies. Except sometimes not, for a rather spectacular array of reasons both spontaneous and induced. Real women are fat. And thin. And both, and neither, and otherwise. Doesn’t make them any less real. There is a phrase I wish I could engrave upon the hearts of every single person, everywhere in the world, and it is this sentence which comes from the genius lips of the grand and eloquent Mr. Glenn Marla: There is no wrong way to have a body. I’m going to say it again because it’s important: There is no wrong way to have a body. And if your moral compass points in any way, shape, or form to equality, you need to get this through your thick skull and stop with the “real women are like such-and-so” crap. You are not the authority on what “real” human beings are, and who qualifies as “real” and on what basis. All human beings are real. Yes, I know you’re tired of feeling disenfranchised. It is a tiresome and loathsome thing to be and to feel. But the tit-for-tat disenfranchisement of others is not going to solve that problem. Solidarity has to start somewhere and it might as well be with you and me

The gender binary is like a party guest who shows up before you get the chance to set the table. Before a baby is even born, well-meaning well-wishers will often ask, “Is it a boy or a girl?” The baby only becomes real to most people once they know the gender. But there are so many more important questions to be asked when a child is born, such as: “How’s your baby doing?” or “How can I support you during this time?” or “Why is it so expensive to raise kids?” Or maybe even “Where can I donate to help?

The moms I knew when I was little didn't have to prove that it was okay to want a child. Sure, a lot of women I know wonder if they do want a child, but not why. It's assumed why. The question cis women get asked is: Why don't you want kids? And then they have to justify that. If I had been born cis, I would never even have had to answer these questions. I wouldn't have had to prove that I deserve my models of womanhood. But I'm not cis. I'm trans. And so until the day that I am a mother, I'm constantly going to have to prove that I deserve to be one. That it's not unnatural or twisted that I want a child's love. Why do I want to be a mother? After all those beautiful women I grew up with, the ones who chaperoned my classes on field trips, or made me lunch when I was at their house, or sewed costumes for all the little girls that I ice skated with — and you too, Katrina, for that matter — have to explain their feelings about motherhood, then, I'll explain mine. And do you know what I'll say? Ditto.

De girl baby ain’t born and her mama is dead, dat can git me tuh spend our money on her. Ah told yo’ before dat you got de keys tuh de kingdom. You can depend on dat.

I went home, and my mom squealed when I walked in the door. “Ooooooh! They turned my baby boy into a pretty little girl! I’ve got a little girl! You’re so pretty!

The sleep that flits on baby's eyes - does anybody know from where it comes? Yes, there is a rumour that it has its dwelling where, in the fairy village among shadows of the forest dimly lit with glow-worms, there hang two timid buds of enchantment. From there it comes to kiss baby's eyes. The smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps - does anybody know where it was born? Yes, there is a rumour that a young pale beam of a crescent moon touched the edge of a vanishing autumn cloud, and there the smile was first born in the dream of a dew-washed morning - the smile that flickers on baby's lips when he sleeps. The sweet, soft freshness that blooms on baby's limbs - does anybody know where it was hidden so long? Yes, when the mother was a young girl it lay pervading her heart in tender and silent mystery of love - the sweet, soft freshness that has bloomed on baby's limbs.

When the strong healthy boy, howling at the indignity of the birth process, was put to her breast, she felt a wild tenderness for him, The other baby, Francis, in the crib next her bed, began to whimper. Katie had a flash of contempt for the weak child she had borne a year ago, when she compared her to this new handsome son. She was quickly ashamed of hr contempt. She knew it wasn't the little girl's fault. "I must watch myself carefully," she thought. "I am going to love this boy more than the girl but I mustn't ever let her know. It is wrong to love one child more than the other but this is something that I cannot help.

The doctors put her in a room, laid her down on a bed. She pushed and pushed when they told her to. She felt the baby move through her, felt it as her baby came. Her son. She felt him, but Albina never heard him cry. Her baby was born dead.

All women have the same value. Every woman could have been born to different circumstances, in a different country, to different parents, to a different government... prostitutes are not "special kinds" of women, nor are they "lower kinds of women." All women are women and we are born into different circumstances in life, we go through different things in life, and we turn out differently. The prostitute that a man so easily dismisses as someone to be "used and forgotten" is a woman who's circumstances have put her there, no matter what those circumstances are. Any baby girl could have been born into those very same circumstances. Everything is all a matter of chance. So do I find it fundamentally immoral for men to classify women into "worthy" and "unworthy"? Yes, I do. But what I find to be worse than that, is the fact that we are all of the same value and yet we are all born unequally. But no man should ever take advantage of that. Prostitution shouldn't ever have to be an option, it shouldn't even exist.

Dead Butterfly By Ellen Bass For months my daughter carried a dead monarch in a quart mason jar. To and from school in her backpack, to her only friend’s house. At the dinner table it sat like a guest alongside the pot roast. She took it to bed, propped by her pillow. Was it the year her brother was born? Was this her own too-fragile baby that had lived—so briefly—in its glassed world? Or the year she refused to go to her father’s house? Was this the holding-her-breath girl she became there? This plump child in her rolled-down socks I sometimes wanted to haul back inside me and carry safe again. What was her fierce commitment? I never understood. We just lived with the dead winged thing as part of her, as part of us, weightless in its heavy jar.

My birth certificate says: Female Negro Mother: Mary Anne Irby, 22, Negro Father: Jack Austin Woodson, 25, Negro In Birmingham, Alabama, Martin Luther King Jr. is planning a march on Washington, where John F. Kennedy is president. In Harlem, Malcolm X is standing on a soapbox talking about a revolution. Outside the window of University Hospital, snow is slowly falling. So much already covers this vast Ohio ground. In Montgomery, only seven years have passed since Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a city bus. I am born brown-skinned, black-haired and wide-eyed. I am born Negro here and Colored there and somewhere else, the Freedom Singers have linked arms, their protests rising into song: Deep in my heart, I do believe that we shall overcome someday. and somewhere else, James Baldwin is writing about injustice, each novel, each essay, changing the world. I do not yet know who I’ll be what I’ll say how I’ll say it . . . Not even three years have passed since a brown girl named Ruby Bridges walked into an all-white school. Armed guards surrounded her while hundreds of white people spat and called her names. She was six years old. I do not know if I’ll be strong like Ruby. I do not know what the world will look like when I am finally able to walk, speak, write . . . Another Buckeye! the nurse says to my mother. Already, I am being named for this place. Ohio. The Buckeye State. My fingers curl into fists, automatically This is the way, my mother said, of every baby’s hand. I do not know if these hands will become Malcolm’s—raised and fisted or Martin’s—open and asking or James’s—curled around a pen. I do not know if these hands will be Rosa’s or Ruby’s gently gloved and fiercely folded calmly in a lap, on a desk, around a book, ready to change the world . . .

We were expecting our first child. My husband wanted a boy and I wanted a girl. The doctors tried to convince me: “You need to get an abortion. Your husband was at Chernobyl.” He was a truck driver; they called him in during the first days. He drove sand. But I didn’t believe anyone. The baby was born dead. She was missing two fingers. A girl. I cried. “She should at least have fingers,” I thought. “She’s a girl.

You see when a new baby laughs for the first time a new fairy is born, and as there are always new babies there are always new fairies. They live in nests on the tops of trees; and the mauve ones are boys and the white ones are girls, and the blue ones are just little sillies who are not sure what they are.

I think we should kill her…What? She’s ruined my entire day. Made me fight with my wife and now you tell me she’s a spy sent to put us all under the jail. What part of ‘kill your enemies before they kill you’ did you sleep through? Your dad was an assassin, same as my mom. Don’t puss on me now, boy. You know what they’d do if they were here. Hell, your own mother would tear her up, spit her out in pieces, and not blink. (Sway) He’s right. None of you have any reason to help me. Why should you care? (She clicked the vid wall and a picture of a teenage girl was there.) That’s my baby sister, Tempest Elanari Gerran. Her birthday was day before yesterday. She turned sixteen in jail with my mother. I may be out of line, but I’ll bet when you guys turned sixteen, you had a celebration for it with presents and friends wishing you well. You won’t just be killing me. You’ll be killing them, too. Tempest is a prime sexual age and a virgin. Any idea what’s the first thing her new owner will do to her when she’s sold? I don’t want her to ever know the horror that was my sixteenth birthday. (Alix)

JOHNNA: When a Cheyenne baby is born, their umbilical cord is dried and sewn into this pouch. Turtles for girls, lizards for boys. And we wear it for the rest of our lives. JEAN: Wow. JOHNNA: Because if we lose it, our souls belong nowhere and after we die our souls will walk the Earth looking for where we belong.

So tell me: were you born broken just like me, born hungry? Are we all of us born with some part of us missing? Are we each us born with a hole?....Born with a hole and no earthly way of finding just the exact right plug to fill it, not 'til you've tried 'em from A to Z and back once more: booze, fags, work, candy, men, girls, heroin, methedrine, methadone, God. Tried having a baby. Tried killing yourself. A hundred religions, from Calvin to the Dalai Lama and back again; tried every damn thing you could think of and some you had to stumble over....You stick a plug in your weakness like a finger in the proverbial dike and let pressure build up let it swell and swell 'til there's nothing left but tension, nothing left but what's left over--the absence, not the presence. The wound you shape your soul around.

The following spring was a time of calving. Great icebergs calved from the vast glaciers which stretched down to our fjords from distant mountains. The heifers and cows of Kaupangen gave birth to over one hundred calves that spring. Most survived. Gudrod, the master shepherd, had seventy-five new lambkins skipping after their mothers. Ten sets of lamb twins were born in the city that year. Bitches had pups suckling at their breasts. The mountain goats that stood watch over the fjord, indifferently chewing on the wild grasses between the rocks, had kids following them on their steep paths. The residents of the city, too, gave birth. Twenty-one new healthy babies were born within thirty days of the spring equinox; boys and girls with thick blonde, brown, black, or red hair; others with smooth bald heads. Olaf, my third father, my king, had a son, stillborn. Olaf wept. Kenna wept. I wept as the boy was buried inside the casket with his mother in our graveyard by the church.

Being born a human was not the first time God made Himself small so that we could have access to Him. First He shrunk Himself when He revealed the Torah at Mount Sinai. He shrunk Himself into tiny Hebrew words, man's finite language, so that we might get to Him that way. Then He shrunk Himself again, down to the size of a baby, down into manger finiteness.

By 1867, there were only fifty Dakota left in Minnesota.67 That year, a baby girl was born just across the Mississippi, in a little house in the Big Woods.

Born in Ontario he was, 10 years later, her mom delivered a baby girl in ‘picturesque Ukraine.

I called you "baby boy" because we’re just starting something new together. We were just born. We’re babies. You’re a baby boy and I’m a baby girl. Equals in everything that matters.

I doubt it's possible to have a baby and not imagine what you want for it. If I were to ever fall pregnant, I would wonder what the sex of the baby is. Celebrations that center expectations around gender depress me, though. I don't think I am what someone would envision if they cut into a cake and saw pink. If I saw photos of my mom, teary-eyed at the thought of me being a girl, I would feel even more guilty for being born the way I am.

Their daughter was born just before sunrise. She had skin the color of cedarwood and eyes like wheat. They named her for an old, half-forgotten god from Ade's own world, whom Yule had studied once in an ancient text preserved in Nin's archives. He was a strange god, depicted in the faded manuscript with two faces staring both backward and forward. He presided not over once particular domain but over the places between- past and present, here and there, endings and beginnings- over doorways, in short. But Ade thought Janus sounded too much like Jane, and she'd be damned if any daughter of hers would be named Jane. They named her after the god's own month instead: January. Oh, my sweet daughter, my perfect January, I would beg for your forgiveness, but I lack the courage. All I can ask for is your belief. Believe in doors and worlds and the Written. Believe most of all in our love for you- even if the only evidence we've left you is contained in the book you now hold.

My epic,” said Emily, diligently devouring plum cake, “is about a very beautiful high-born girl who was stolen away from her real parents when she was a baby and brought up in a woodcutter’s hut.” “One av the seven original plots in the world,” murmured Father Cassidy. “What?” “Nothing. Just a bad habit av thinking aloud. Go on.” “She had a lover of high degree but his family did not want him to marry her because she was only a woodcutter’s daughter—” “Another of the seven plots — excuse me.” “ — so they sent him away to the Holy Land on a crusade and word came back that he was killed and then Editha — her name was Editha — went into a convent—” Emily paused for a bite of plum cake and Father Cassidy took up the strain. “And now her lover comes back very much alive, though covered with Paynim scars, and the secret av her birth is discovered through the dying confession av the old nurse and the birthmark on her arm.” “How did you know?” gasped Emily in amazement. “Oh, I guessed it — I’m a good guesser.

Our baby brother, Roman, was born pale as dust. His soft brown curls and eyelashes stop people on the street. Whose angel child is this? they want to know. When I say, My brother, the people wear doubt thick as a cape until we smile and the cape falls.

We decided it would be best to just say that our new baby was a girl, and if anyone asked how she was doing, we would then explain, “She has a heart issue, which is very common for babies born with Down syndrome.” I told the older boys, “Guys, the world often defines a person as ‘perfect’ when he or she is pretty, handsome, athletic, intelligent, and wealthy. Yet, these are not the qualities that God judges us on. He looks at our souls because it is the pure souls that experience the eternal glory of heaven.

A Baby Elephant Right now my love for you is a baby elephant Born in Berlin or in Paris, And treading with its cushioned feet Around the zoo director's house. Do not offer it French pastries, Do not offer it cabbage heads, It can eat only sections of tangerines, Or lumps of sugar and pieces of candy. Don't cry, my sweet, because it will be put Into a narrow cage, become a joke for mobs, When salesman blow cigar smoke into its trunk To the cackles of their girl friends. Don't imagine, my dear, that the day will come When, infuriated, it will snap its chains And rush along the streets, Crushing howling people like a bus. No, may you dream of it at dawn, Clad in bronze and brocade and ostrich feathers, Like that magnificent beast which once Bore Hannibal to trembling Rome.

In The Garret Four little chests all in a row, Dim with dust, and worn by time, All fashioned and filled, long ago, By children now in their prime. Four little keys hung side by side, With faded ribbons, brave and gay When fastened there, with childish pride, Long ago, on a rainy day. Four little names, one on each lid, Carved out by a boyish hand, And underneath there lieth hid Histories of the happy band Once playing here, and pausing oft To hear the sweet refrain, That came and went on the roof aloft, In the falling summer rain. 'Meg' on the first lid, smooth and fair. I look in with loving eyes, For folded here, with well-known care, A goodly gathering lies, The record of a peaceful life-- Gifts to gentle child and girl, A bridal gown, lines to a wife, A tiny shoe, a baby curl. No toys in this first chest remain, For all are carried away, In their old age, to join again In another small Meg's play. Ah, happy mother! Well I know You hear, like a sweet refrain, Lullabies ever soft and low In the falling summer rain. 'Jo' on the next lid, scratched and worn, And within a motley store Of headless dolls, of schoolbooks torn, Birds and beasts that speak no more, Spoils brought home from the fairy ground Only trod by youthful feet, Dreams of a future never found, Memories of a past still sweet, Half-writ poems, stories wild, April letters, warm and cold, Diaries of a wilful child, Hints of a woman early old, A woman in a lonely home, Hearing, like a sad refrain-- 'Be worthy, love, and love will come,' In the falling summer rain. My Beth! the dust is always swept From the lid that bears your name, As if by loving eyes that wept, By careful hands that often came. Death canonized for us one saint, Ever less human than divine, And still we lay, with tender plaint, Relics in this household shrine-- The silver bell, so seldom rung, The little cap which last she wore, The fair, dead Catherine that hung By angels borne above her door. The songs she sang, without lament, In her prison-house of pain, Forever are they sweetly blent With the falling summer rain. Upon the last lid's polished field-- Legend now both fair and true A gallant knight bears on his shield, 'Amy' in letters gold and blue. Within lie snoods that bound her hair, Slippers that have danced their last, Faded flowers laid by with care, Fans whose airy toils are past, Gay valentines, all ardent flames, Trifles that have borne their part In girlish hopes and fears and shames, The record of a maiden heart Now learning fairer, truer spells, Hearing, like a blithe refrain, The silver sound of bridal bells In the falling summer rain. Four little chests all in a row, Dim with dust, and worn by time, Four women, taught by weal and woe To love and labor in their prime. Four sisters, parted for an hour, None lost, one only gone before, Made by love's immortal power, Nearest and dearest evermore. Oh, when these hidden stores of ours Lie open to the Father's sight, May they be rich in golden hours, Deeds that show fairer for the light, Lives whose brave music long shall ring, Like a spirit-stirring strain, Souls that shall gladly soar and sing In the long sunshine after rain

I thought more often of Susie, and of the luck any parent has when a child is born with four limbs, a normal brain, and the emotional make-up that allows the child, the girl, the woman to lead any sort of life. May you be ordinary, as the poet once wished the new-born baby.

Here’s your daddy,” Emily whispered to the pink bundle in her arms. They had taken her away right after she was born to run some tests. They were worried about her heart, which had scared the shit out of me. Emily had held my hand and reassured me that our little girl would be OK. She prayed to God , so she was banking on the big man to save our baby. I wished I trusted him that much. Glines, Abbi (2014-12-15). Kiro's Emily: A Rosemary Beach Novella (The Rosemary Beach Series Book 10) (Kindle Locations 1159-1162). Atria Books. Kindle Edition.

But I don't know, Wesley. This thing makes me think, too. S'pose we'd got Elnora when she was a baby, and we'd heaped on her all the love we can't on our own, and we'd coddled, petted, and shielded her, would she have made the woman that living alone, learning to think for herself, and taking all the knocks Kate Comstock could give, have made of her?" "You bet your life!" cried Wesley, warmly. "Loving anybody don't hurt them. We wouldn't have done anything but love her. You can't hurt a child loving it. She'd have learned to work, be sensible, study, and grown into a woman with us, without suffering like a poor homeless dog." "But you don't get the point, Wesley. She would have grown into a fine woman with us; just seems as if Elnora was born to be fine, but as we would have raised her, would her heart ever have known the world as it does now? Where's the anguish, Wesley, that child can't comprehend? Seeing what she's seen of her mother hasn't hardened her. She can understand any mother's sorrow. Living life from the rough side has only broadened her. Where's the girl or boy burning with shame, or struggling to find a way, that will cross Elnora's path and not get a lift from her? She's had the knocks, but there'll never be any of the thing you call 'false pride' in her. I guess we better keep out. Maybe Kate Comstock knows what she's doing. Sure as you live, Elnora has grown bigger on knocks than she would on love.

Is Zaddie Sapp deformed because she was born with black skin?” “Of course not—” “Are Grace and Lucille deformed because they have given up men and live out at Gavin Pond Farm together?” “No, Mama, that’s not—” “That’s how they were born, darling! Zaddie was born with black skin and Grace Caskey was born to dote on girls, and just because they’re different, do you think Creola Sapp should have said, ‘I’m not going to give birth to this child’? Do you think Genevieve and James should have said, ‘We don’t want a little baby if she’s not going to grow up to be just like everybody else in this town’?

There's one big difference between the poor and the rich,' Kite says, taking a drag from his cigarette. We are in a pub, at lunch-time. John Kite is always, unless stated otherwise, smoking a fag, in a pub, at lunch-time. 'The rich aren't evil, as so many of my brothers would tell you. I've known rich people -- I have played on their yachts -- and they are not unkind, or malign, and they do not hate the poor, as many would tell you. And they are not stupid -- or at least, not any more than the poor are. Much as I find amusing the idea of a ruling class of honking toffs, unable to put their socks on without Nanny helping them, it is not true. They build banks, and broker deals, and formulate policy, all with perfect competency. 'No -- the big difference between the rich and the poor is that the rich are blithe. They believe nothing can ever really be so bad, They are born with the lovely, velvety coating of blitheness -- like lanugo, on a baby -- and it is never rubbed off by a bill that can't be paid; a child that can't be educated; a home that must be left for a hostel, when the rent becomes too much. 'Their lives are the same for generations. There is no social upheaval that will really affect them. If you're comfortably middle-class, what's the worst a government policy could do? Ever? Tax you at 90 per cent and leave your bins, unemptied, on the pavement. But you and everyone you know will continue to drink wine -- but maybe cheaper -- go on holiday -- but somewhere nearer -- and pay off your mortgage -- although maybe later. 'Consider, now, then, the poor. What's the worst a government policy can do to them? It can cancel their operation, with no recourse to private care. It can run down their school -- with no escape route to a prep. It can have you out of your house and into a B&B by the end of the year. When the middle-classes get passionate about politics, they're arguing about their treats -- their tax breaks and their investments. When the poor get passionate about politics, they're fighting for their lives. 'Politics will always mean more to the poor. Always. That's why we strike and march, and despair when our young say they won't vote. That's why the poor are seen as more vital, and animalistic. No classical music for us -- no walking around National Trust properties, or buying reclaimed flooring. We don't have nostalgia. We don't do yesterday. We can't bear it. We don't want to be reminded of our past, because it was awful; dying in mines, and slums, without literacy, or the vote. Without dignity. It was all so desperate, then. That's why the present and the future is for the poor -- that's the place in time for us: surviving now, hoping for better, later. We live now -- for our instant, hot, fast treats, to prep us up: sugar, a cigarette, a new fast song on the radio. 'You must never, never forget, when you talk to someone poor, that it takes ten times the effort to get anywhere from a bad postcode, It's a miracle when someone from a bad postcode gets anywhere, son. A miracle they do anything at all.

So Nan told Charlie about the whole thing. How the baby Jesus was born in a basket and how a wicked king tried to kidnap him but then a big bearded angel named Father Christmas fought the king. “And then he tossed the baby Jesus down the chimney of a girl named Mary, and that was the first Christmas present.

of the problem was that Chaos got a little creation-happy. It thought to its misty, gloomy self: Hey, Earth and Sky. That was fun! I wonder what else I can make. Soon it created all sorts of other problems—and by that I mean gods. Water collected out of the mist of Chaos, pooled in the deepest parts of the earth, and formed the first seas, which naturally developed a consciousness—the god Pontus. Then Chaos really went nuts and thought: I know! How about a dome like the sky, but at the bottom of the earth! That would be awesome! So another dome came into being beneath the earth, but it was dark and murky and generally not very nice, since it was always hidden from the light of the sky. This was Tartarus, the Pit of Evil; and as you can guess from the name, when he developed a godly personality, he didn't win any popularity contests. The problem was, both Pontus and Tartarus liked Gaea, which put some pressure on her relationship with Ouranos. A bunch of other primordial gods popped up, but if I tried to name them all we’d be here for weeks. Chaos and Tartarus had a kid together (don’t ask how; I don’t know) called Nyx, who was the embodiment of night. Then Nyx, somehow all by herself, had a daughter named Hemera, who was Day. Those two never got along because they were as different as…well, you know. According to some stories, Chaos also created Eros, the god of procreation... in other words, mommy gods and daddy gods having lots of little baby gods. Other stories claim Eros was the son of Aphrodite. We’ll get to her later. I don’t know which version is true, but I do know Gaea and Ouranos started having kids—with very mixed results. First, they had a batch of twelve—six girls and six boys called the Titans. These kids looked human, but they were much taller and more powerful. You’d figure twelve kids would be enough for anybody, right? I mean, with a family that big, you’ve basically got your own reality TV show. Plus, once the Titans were born, things started to go sour with Ouranos and Gaea’s marriage. Ouranos spent a lot more time hanging out in the sky. He didn't visit. He didn't help with the kids. Gaea got resentful. The two of them started fighting. As the kids grew older, Ouranos would yell at them and basically act like a horrible dad. A few times, Gaea and Ouranos tried to patch things up. Gaea decided maybe if they had another set of kids, it would bring them closer…. I know, right? Bad idea. She gave birth to triplets. The problem: these new kids defined the word UGLY. They were as big and strong as Titans, except hulking and brutish and in desperate need of a body wax. Worst of all, each kid had a single eye in the middle of his forehead. Talk about a face only a mother could love. Well, Gaea loved these guys. She named them the Elder Cyclopes, and eventually they would spawn a whole race of other, lesser Cyclopes. But that was much later. When Ouranos saw the Cyclops triplets, he freaked. “These cannot be my kids! They don’t even look like me!” “They are your children, you deadbeat!” Gaea screamed back. “Don’t you dare leave me to raise them on my own!

because you see when a new baby laughs for the first time a new fairy is born, and as there are always new babies there are always new fairies. They live in nests on the tops of trees; and the mauve ones are boys and the white ones are girls, and the blue ones are just little sillies who are not sure what they are.

Exhausted, emptied-out. I had no desire to tell Margaret about what had happened. I thought more often of Susie, and of the luck any parent has when a child is born with four limbs, a normal brain, and the emotional makeup that allows the child, the girl, the woman to lead any sort of life. May you be ordinary, as the poet once wished the newborn baby.

Come now, Richard," he said, "don't be foolish. Those were what are called trick babies. They were born in a house of prostitution; and they'll live out their lives that way...but I'll tell you what strikes me, Richard, about the whole matter. It's the way that life asserts itself, no matter what the circumstances. Of course it must be a miserable existence. How could it not be? Yet those little girls manage to live; to breathe, to enjoy themselves. They laugh and they are full of curiosity and tenderness. They adjust, I believe that's the word. The adjust and they reach for the starts in their own way. I tell you it's wondrous to me. They make me think of the wild flowers that grow in the cracks of pavements, just pushing up into the sun, no matter how many feet crush them down.

She drifted back to the gallery and looked down on the Great Hall. The grey and black flags danced before her eyes. Dear God, she couldn’t do it. They might as well ask her to go to Oxford and sit an exam. She could not be an ordinary mother to an ordinary baby. All those toys, the memorabilia of childhood. Perhaps it was different if you grew up happy, with memories of your father dandling you on his knee and your mother kissing your tears away. But for Elsie there was nothing but fear. Fear for the baby. Fear of the baby. Jolyon had turned out all right, she reminded herself. But it was easier with Jolyon being a boy. What if Rupert’s baby was born a girl? She could not love a daughter that looked like her. She could not bear to glance upon a mirror of her past without being sick.

From the moment we are born, boys and girls are treated differently. Parents tend to talk to girl babies more than boy babies. Mothers overestimate the crawling ability of their sons and underestimate the crawling ability of their daughters. Reflecting the belief that girls need to be helped more than boys, mothers often spend more time comforting and hugging infant girls and more time watching infant boys play by themselves.

- The local prince had gotten a notion that the girl could spin straw into gold, the dwarf said. Brainless young idiot, but they’re all like that. If she could spin straw into gold, why was she living in a hovel? Anyway, Gramps said he’d do her spinning for her in return for part of the gold and her firstborn child. She agreed, but naturally when the baby was born she didn’t want to give him up. So Gramps agreed to a guessing game: if she could guess his name, she could keep the baby. Then he let her find out what his name was. She kept the baby and Gramps kept the gold, and everyone went home happy. - I think I’m beginning to get the idea, Cimorene said. It’s not just spinning straw into gold that’s a family tradition, is it? It’s the whole scheme. The dwarf nodded sadly. - Right the first time. Only I can never make it work properly. I can find plenty of girls who’re supposed to spin straw into gold, and most of them suggest the guessing game, but I’ve never had even one who managed to guess my name. - Oh, dear, said Cimorene. - I even changed my name legally, so it would be easier, the dwarf said sadly. Herman isn’t a difficult name to remember, is it? But no, the silly chits can’t do it. So I end up with the baby as well as the gold, and babies eat and cry and need clothes, and the gold runs out, and I have to find another girl to spin gold for, and it happens all over again, and I end up with another baby. It isn’t fair!

They say that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it is not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. There are some situations where the correct response is to display the sort of ignorance which happily and wilfully flies in the face of the facts. In this case, the birth of a baby girl, born a wizard – by mistake. Everybody knows that there’s no such thing as a female wizard. But now it’s gone and happened, there’s nothing much anyone can do about it. Let the battle of the sexes begin . . .

I didn't feel anything at first when Miss Ethel told me, but now I think about it all the time. It's like there's a baby girl down here waiting to be born. She's somewhere close by in the air, in this house, and she picked me to be born to. And now she has to find some other mother." Cee began to sob. "Come on girl. Don't cry," whispered Frank. "Why not? I can be miserable if I want to. You don't need to try and make it go away. It shouldn't go away. It's just as sad as it ought to be and I'm not going to hide from what's true just because it hurts.

That was weird.” David grunted. “Of course,” said Mal. “It’s always weird when unresolved sexual tension boils over like that. Still, gives me something to report back to Anne tonight. We’ll have a good gossip about y’all then give making a baby another turn or two. Maybe even three if my wife is lucky. And that girl was born lucky.” Jimmy’s lips flattened. “I think it’s great that you’re planning on starting a family. But I can honestly live without the daily updates regarding your sex life, man.” “But you don’t have to, Jimbo. That’s the beauty of it, I’m more than happy to share.

When the strong healthy boy, howling at the indignity of the birth process, was put to her breast, she felt a wild tenderness for him. The other baby, Francie, in the crib next her bed, began to whimper. Katie had a flash of comtempt for the weak child she had borne a year ago, when she compared her to this new handsome son. She was quickly ashamed of her contempt. She knew it wasn’t the little girl’s fault. “I must watch myself carefully,” she thought. “I am going to love this boy more than the girl but I mustn’t ever let her know. It is wrong to love one child more than the other but this is something that I cannot help.” Sissy

We got pregnant with Angel almost by accident. I was thinking it was just about time to go on birth control and wham-it happened. We wanted two children, but were thinking of spacing them out a little more. God and Angel had other plans. I’m so glad. Bubba and Angel are so close in age and such good friends that I can’t imagine it any other way. But at the time, I was more than a little apprehensive about it. Once again, it worked out that Chris was preparing to leave just when I was due. They say God only gives you what you can handle. Chris didn’t cope with crying babies very well. So either he paid the military to deploy him with each baby, or God was looking out for him with well-timed, newborn-avoiding deployments. This time, the Team guy karma worked: the sonogram technician confirmed it was a girl several months into the pregnancy. She was going to be the first female born into the Kyle side of the family in eighty years. Which made her unique, and her grandparents particularly tickled. Chris couldn’t resist the opportunity to tease them with the news. “We’re having a boy,” he said when he called them back in Texas with the news. “Oh, how nice,” they said. “No, we’re having a girl.” “Whoo-hoo!” they shouted. “No, we’re having a boy.” “Chris! Which is it!?” “A girl!” If they could have gotten away to visit us that night, I doubt they would have needed an airplane to fly.

The infant, Isabelle, had been born to Annabelle and Simon Hunt approximately ten months earlier. Surely no baby had ever been doted on more, by every one in the household including her father. Contrary to all expectations the virile and masculine Mr. Hunt had not been at all disappointed that his firstborn was a girl. He adored the child, showing no compunction about holding her in public, cooing to her in a way that fathers seldom dared. Hunt had even instructed Annabelle to produce more daughters in the future, claiming roguishly that it had always been his ambition to be loved by many women. As might have been expected, the baby was exceptionally beautiful- it would be a physical impossibility for Annabelle to produce a less than spectacular offspring.

So tell me: were you born broken just like me, born hungry? Are we all of us born with some part of us missing? Are we each us born with a hole?....Born with a hold and no earthly way of finding just the exact right plug to fill it, not 'til you've tried 'em from A to Z and back once more: booze, fags, work, candy, men, girls, heroin, methedrine, methadone, God. Tried having a baby. Tried killing yourself. A hundred religions, from Calvin to the Dalai Lama and back again; tried every damn thing you could think of and some you had to stumble over....You stick a plug in your weakness like a finger in the proverbial dike and let pressure build up let it swell and swell 'til there's nothing left but tension, nothing left but what's left over--the absence, not the presence. The wound you shape your soul around.

When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true, too. She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow, and her face was yellow because she had been born in India and had always been ill in one way or another. Her father had held a position under the English Government and had always been busy and ill himself, and her mother had been a great beauty who cared only to go to parties and amuse herself with gay people. She had not wanted a little girl at all, and when Mary was born she handed her over to the care of an Ayah, who was made to understand that if she wished to please the Mem Sahib she must keep the child out of sight as much as possible. So when she was a sickly, fretful, ugly little baby she was kept out of the way, and when she became a sickly, fretful, toddling thing she was kept out of the way also.

...the name of the baby girl, the names of her parents and godparents, the date and hour of her birth, the street and the number of the apartment where she first saw the light of day and first felt pain, the same beginning as everyone else, the differences, great and small, come later, some of those who are born become entries in encyclopedias, in history books, in biographies, in catalogues, in manuals, in collections of newspaper clippings, the others, roughly speaking, are like a cloud that passes without leaving behind it any trace of its passing, and if rain fell from that cloud it did not even wet the earth. Like me, thought Senhor Jose. He had a cupboard full of men and women about whom the newspapers wrote almost every day, on the table was a birth certificate of an unknown person, and it was as if he had placed them both in the pans of a scale, a hundred on this side, one the other, and was surprised to discover that all of them together weighted no more than this one, that one hundred equaled one, that one was worth as much as a hundred.

I think Hannah had two brothers. Yes, I’m sure she did. Theo and, and--this boy.” I shook my head. “If he’s Hannah’s brother, why isn’t he in any of the other pictures?” Aunt Blythe didn’t answer right away. In the silence, rain pattered against the windows and dripped through holes in the roof. The wind crept in through cracks and stirred the folds of a long white dress hanging from the rafters. Finally, my aunt raised her eyes from the photograph. “I think his name was Andrew. Isn’t that strange? You share a face and a name with a boy who died years before you were born.” My throat tightened. “He died? Andrew died?” Aunt Blythe looked at me. “Oh, dear,” she said, “I didn’t mean to frighten you.” “I’m not scared!” My voice came out as high and squeaky as a girl’s. Furious at myself for being such a baby, I leapt to my feet and headed for the stairs. “Slow down, Drew,” my aunt called. “You’ll go through the floor!” Before the words were out of her mouth, a board split under my weight, and I fell flat on my face. In seconds my aunt was beside me. “Are you all right?” she asked. “Did you hurt yourself?” “I’m fine.” Too embarrassed to meet her eyes, I peered into the hole I’d made.

Nobody ever talked about what a struggle this all was. I could see why women used to die in childbirth. They didn't catch some kind of microbe, or even hemorrhage. They just gave up. They knew that if they didn't die, they'd be going through it again the next year, and the next. I couldn't understand how a woman might just stop trying, like a tired swimmer, let her head go under, the water fill her lungs. I slowly massaged Yvonne's neck, her shoulders, I wouldn't let her go under. She sucked ice through threadbare white terry. If my mother were here, she'd have made Melinda meek cough up the drugs, sure enough. "Mamacita, ay," Yvonne wailed. I didn't know why she would call her mother. She hated her mother. She hadn't seen her in six years, since the day she locked Yvonne and her brother and sisters in their apartment in Burbank to go out and party, and never came back. Yvonne said she let her boyfriends run a train on her when she was eleven. I didn't even know what that meant. Gang bang, she said. And still she called out, Mama. It wasn't just Yvonne. All down the ward, they called for their mothers. ... I held onto Yvonne's hands, and I imagined my mother, seventeen years ago, giving birth to me. Did she call for her mother?...I thought of her mother, the one picture I had, the little I knew. Karin Thorvald, who may or may not have been a distant relation of King Olaf of Norway, classical actress and drunk, who could recite Shakespeare by heart while feeding the chickens and who drowned in the cow pond when my mother was thirteen. I couldn't imagine her calling out for anyone. But then I realized, they didn't mean their own mothers. Not those weak women, those victims. Drug addicts, shopaholics, cookie bakers. They didn't mean the women who let them down, who failed to help them into womanhood, women who let their boyfriends run a train on them. Bingers and purgers, women smiling into mirrors, women in girdles, women in barstools. Not those women with their complaints and their magazines, controlling women, women who asked, what's in it for me? Not the women who watched TV while they made dinner, women who dyed their hair blond behind closed doors trying to look twenty-three. They didn't mean the mothers washing dishes wishing they'd never married, the ones in the ER, saying they fell down the stairs, not the ones in prison saying loneliness is the human condition, get used to it. They wanted the real mother, the blood mother, the great womb, mother of a fierce compassion, a woman large enough to hold all the pain, to carry it away. What we needed was someone who bled, someone deep and rich as a field, a wide-hipped mother, awesome, immense, women like huge soft couches, mothers coursing with blood, mothers big enough, wide enough, for us to hide in, to sink down to the bottom of, mothers who would breathe for is when we could not breathe anymore, who would fight for us, who would kill for us, die for us. Yvonne was sitting up, holding her breath, eyes bulging out. It was the thing she should not do. "Breathe," I said in her ear. "Please, Yvonne, try." She tried to breathe, a couple of shallow inhalations, but it hurt too much. She flopped back on the narrow bed, too tired to go on. All she could do was grip my hand and cry. And I thought of the way the baby was linked to her, as she was linked to her mother, and her mother, all the way back, insider and inside, knit into a chain of disaster that brought her to this bed, this day. And not only her. I wondered what my own inheritance was going to be. "I wish I was dead," Yvonne said into the pillowcase with the flowers I'd brought from home. The baby came four hours later. A girl, born 5:32 PM.

Do you believe in God, Aunt Elner?” “Sure I do, honey, why?” “How old were you when you started believing, do you remember?” Aunt Elner paused for a moment. “I never thought about not believing. Never did question it. I guess believing is just like math: some people get it right out of the chute, and some have to struggle for it. (...) Oh, I know a lot of people struggle, wondering is there really a God. They sit and think and worry over it all their life. The good Lord had to make smart people but I don’t think he did them any favors because it seems the smart ones start questioning things from the get go. But I never did. I’m one of the lucky ones. I thank God every night, my brain is just perfect for me, not too dumb, not too bright. You know, your daddy was always asking questions.” “He was?” “I remember one day he said, ‘Aunt Elner, how do you know there is a God, how can you be sure?’ ” “What did you tell him?” “I said, ‘Well, Gene, the answer is right on the end of your fingertips.’ He said, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘Well, think about it. Every single human being that was ever born from the beginning of time has a completely different set of fingerprints. Not two alike. Not a single one out of all the billions is ever repeated.’ I said, ‘Who else but God could think up all those different patterns and keep coming up with new ones year after year, not to mention all the color combinations of all the fish and birds.’ ” Dena smiled. “What did he say?” “He said, ‘Yes, but, Aunt Elner, how do you know that God’s not repeating old fingerprints from way back and reusing them on us?’ ” She laughed. “See what I mean? Yes, God is great, all right. He only made one mistake but it was a big one.” “What was that?” “Free will. That was his one big blunder. He gave us a choice whether or not to be good or bad. He made us too independent … and you can’t tell people what to do; they won’t listen. You can tell them to be good until you’re blue in the face but people don’t want to be preached at except at church, where they know what they are getting and are prepared for it.” “What’s life all about, Aunt Elner? Don’t you ever wonder what the point of the whole thing is?” “No, not really; it seems to me we only have one big decision in this life, whether to be good or bad. That’s what I came up with a long time ago. Of course, I may be wrong, but I’m not going to spend any time worrying over it, I’m just going to have a good time while I’m here. Live and let live.

Tom, will you let me love you in your restaurant? i will let you make me a sandwich of your invention and i will eat it and call it a carolyn sandwich. then you will kiss my lips and taste the mayonnaise and that is how you shall love me in my restaurant. Tom, will you come up to my empty beige apartment and help me set up my daybed? yes, and i will put the screws in loosely so that when we move on it, later, it will rock like a cradle and then you will know you are my baby Tom, I am sitting on my dirt bike on the deck. Will you come out from the kitchen and watch the people with me? yes, and then we will race to your bedroom. i will win and we will tangle up on your comforter while the sweat rains from your stomachs and foreheads. Tom, the stars are sitting in tonight like gumball gems in a little girl’s jewlery box. Later can we walk to the duck pond? yes, and we can even go the long way past the jungle gym. i will push you on the swing, but promise me you’ll hold tight. if you fall i might disappear. Tom, can we make a baby together? I want to be a big pregnant woman with a loved face and give you a squalling red daughter. no, but i will come inside you and you will be my daughter Tom, will you stay the night with me and sleep so close that we are one person, no, but i will lay down on your sheets and taste you. there will be feathers of you on my tongue and then I will never forget you Tom, when we are in line at the convenience store can I put my hands in your back pockets and my lips and nose in your baseball shirt and feel the crook of your shoulder blade? no, but later you can lay against me and almost touch me and when i go i will leave my shirt for you to sleep in so that always at night you will be pressed up against the thought of me. Tom, if I weep and want to wait until you need me will you promise that someday you will need me? no, but i will sit in silence while you rage. you can knock the chairs down any mountain. i will always be the same and you will always wait. Tom, will you climb on top of the dumpster and steal the sun for me? It’s just hanging there and I want it. no, it will burn my fingers. no one can have the sun: it’s on loan from god. but i will draw a picture of it and send it to you from richmond and then you can smooth out the paper and you will have a piece of me as well as the sun Tom, it’s so hot here, and I think I’m being born. Will you come back from Richmond and baptise me with sex and cool water? i will come back from richmond. i will smooth the damp spiky hairs from the back of your wet neck and then i will lick the salt off it. then i will leave Tom, Richmond is so far away. How will I know how you love me? i have left you. that is how you will know

Are we dead now?" Will said to the boatman. "Makes no difference," he said. "There's some that came here never believing they were dead. They insisted all the way that they were alive, it was a mistake, someone would have to pay; made no difference. There's others who longed to be dead when they were alive, poor souls; lives full of pain and misery; killed themselves for a chance of a blessed rest, and found that nothing had changed except for the worse, and this time there was no escape; you can't make yourself alive again. And there's been others so frail and sickly, little infants, sometimes, that were scarcely born in to the living before they come down to the dead. I've rowed this boat with a little crying baby on my lap many, many times, that never knew the difference between up there and down here. And old folk, too, the rich ones are the worst, snarling and savage and cursing me, railing and screaming: what did I think I was? Hadn't they gathered and saved all the gold they could garner? Wouldn't I take some now, to put them back ashore? They'd have the law on me, they had powerful friends, they knew the Pope and the king of this and the duke of that, they were in a position to see I was punished and chastised...But they knew what the truth was in the end: the only position they were in was in my boat going to the land of the dead, and as for those kings and Pope,s they'd be in here, too, in their turn, sooner than they wanted. I let 'em cry and rave; they can't hurt me; the fall silent in the end. So if you don't know whether you're dead or not, and the little girls swears blind she'll come out again to the living, I say nothing to contradict you. What you are, you'll know soon enough.

Our streets have days, and even hours. Where I was born, and where my baby will be born, you look down the street and you can almost see what's happening in the house: like, say, Saturday, at three in the afternoon, is a very bad hour. The kids are home from school. The men are home from work. You'd think that this might be a very happy get together, but it isn't. The kids see the men. The men see the kids. And this drives the women, who are cooking and cleaning and straightening hair and who see what men won't see, almost crazy. You can see it in the streets, you can hear it in the way the women yell for their children. You can see it in the way they come down out of the house - in a rush, like a storm - and slap the children and drag them upstairs, you can hear it in the child, you can see it in the way the men, ignoring all this, stand together in front of a railing, sit together in the barbershop, pass a bottle between them, walk to the corner to the bar, tease the girl behind the bar, fight with each other, and get very busy, later, with their vines. Saturday afternoon is like a cloud hanging over, it's like waiting for a storm to break. But, on Sunday mornings the clouds have lifted, the storm has done its damage and gone. No matter what the damage was, everybody's clean now. The women have somehow managed to get it all together, to hold everything together. So, here everybody is, cleaned, scrubbed, brushed, and greased. Later, they're going to eat ham hocks or chitterlings or fried or roasted chicken, with yams and rice and greens or combread or biscuits. They're going to come home and fall out and be friendly: and some men wash their cars, on Sundays, more carefully than they wash their fo­reskins.

I just realized I know nothing about you. Do you have a family? Where are you from?” The idea that I just invited a relative stranger, who owns nothing, to live in my apartment gave me a stomachache, but the weird thing was that I felt like I had known him forever. “I’m from Detroit; my entire family still lives there. My mom works in a bakery at a grocery store and my dad is a retired electrician. I have twelve brothers and sisters.” “Really? I’m an only child. I can’t imagine having a huge family like that—it must have been awesome!” Relaxing his stance, he leaned his tattooed forearm onto the dresser and crossed his feet. Jackson came over and sat next to him. Will unconsciously began petting Jackson’s head. It made my heart warm. “Actually, I don’t have twelve brothers and sisters. I have one brother and eleven sisters.” He paused. “I’m dead serious. My brother Ray is the oldest and I’m the youngest with eleven girls in between. I swear my parents just wanted to give Ray a brother, so they kept having more babies. By the time I was born, Ray was sixteen and didn’t give a shit. On top of it, they all have R names except me. It’s a f**king joke.” “You’re kidding? Name ‘em,” I demanded. In a super-fast voice Will recited, “Raymond, Reina, Rachelle, Rae, Riley, Rianna, Reese, Regan, Remy, Regina, Ranielle, Rebecca, and then me, Will.” “Surely they could have figured out another R name?” “Well my brother was named after my dad, so my mom felt like I should be named after someone too, being the only other boy and all. So I was named after my grandfather… Wilbur Ryan.” “Oh my god!” I burst into laughter. “Your name is Wilbur?” “Hey, woman, that’s my poppy’s name, too.” Still giggling, I said, “I’m sorry, I just expected William.” “Yeah, it’s okay. Everyone does.” He smiled and winked at me again.

Why the Leaves Change Colour The first girl who was ever born with amber skin was Mother Nature’s own child. Her birth was from a seed Mother Nature planted in the darkest, purest, most fertile soil, and soon there was a flower, and the flower opened up to show the most beautiful little girl imaginable. One day when the little girl was playing, the Sky, who was her brother, jealous of how lovely she was and how happy and distracted their mother had been since she was born, stole her and placed her upon a star so far away from the earth, Mother Nature could not get to her. In her grief, Mother Nature took every leaf that existed on Earth and turned them amber. The baby girl raised herself on this star—after all, she was her mother’s child, fortitude became her. She became majestic, and independent, and knew how to cope with anything alone because she had always only known alone. When the girl was finally old enough to explore the universe by itself, she travelled across the stars, finding beauty in thousands of planets, but none where she really felt at home. Until, that is, she came upon a beautiful blue planet with amber leaves. Walking through golden leaves, she remembered who she was, and who her mother was, for this is the magic of the bond children have with their mothers. They will remember them even if they are millions of miles away; why do you think good mothers can say things like ‘I love you all the way around the universe’ and you just know they mean it and know not to question it? When Mother Nature felt in her bones that her child had returned, she took her into her arms and turned all the leaves to green again. But because the leaves of amber gold were how her girl found her again, it happens every single year in commemoration. We call it a season. We named it after Mother Nature’s only daughter. We called it Autumn.

Missy and I haven’t spent a lot of time asking God why Mia was born with her difficulties. We have accepted that it’s yet another opportunity to glorify Him. A couple of years after Mia was born, one of the nurses at St. Francis Medical Center in Monroe called Missy. The nurse told her that there was a couple at the hospital, and they had just given birth to a baby with a cleft lip and soft palate. The couple was really struggling with the shock, and the nurse told Missy she remembered how we handled it. Missy and I went to the hospital and talked to the parents. Missy told the nurses to call us whenever a similar situation occurred. A few months later, Missy and Mia were in Dallas for a checkup. The nurse from St. Francis called Missy and told her there was another baby born with the same condition. Since Missy was out of town, she called me. “Jason, you have to go up there,” she said. “I can’t do this,” I said. “The parents are devastated,” she said. “You have to go.” “I can’t,” I said. After I hung up the phone, I thought about the situation for several minutes. I remembered how Missy and I felt when Mia was born, and I knew the parents at the hospital needed all the support in the world. I called Missy back and told her I was going. When I walked into the hospital room, the parents were there with some family members. Everybody was crying, and it seemed like the normal joy of a child being born was missing. They looked at me like, “Who is this guy?” I was so quiet I could have heard a pin drop. Their new son was with the other babies in the nursery, and I could see him through the glass wall that separated the waiting room and the nursery. I’d brought along before-and-after photos of Mia. I took them out of my pocket and held them up. “I have a girl named Mia, and when she was born she looked a lot like him,” I said. “All I can tell you is that you can make it through this. It is going to be okay.

We had planned to spend Christmas morning with my family, and then head over to Phil and Kay’s for Christmas night. The whole family was there, including all the grandkids. Bella, Willie and Korie’s daughter, was the youngest and still an infant. We opened presents, ate dinner, and the whole evening felt surreal. Tomorrow morning I’ll have a baby in this world, I thought. When Jep and I left that night, I said, “I’m gonna go have a baby. See you all later!” For all the worry and concern and tears and prayers we’d spent on our unborn baby, when it came to her birth, she was no trouble at all. I went to the hospital, got prepped for the C-section, and within thirty minutes she was out. Lily was beautiful and healthy. I was overwhelmed with happiness and joy. I felt God had blessed me. He’d created life inside of me--a real, beautiful, breathing little human being--and brought her into this world through me. It was an unbelievable miracle. And the best part? Jep was in the delivery room. Unlike his dad, he wanted to be there, and he shared it all with me. I’ll never forget the sight of Jep decked out in blue scrubs, with the blue head cover, holding his baby girl for the first time. I’ll never forget how she nestled down in the crook of his arm, his hand wrapped up and around, gently holding her. He stared down at her, and I could see a smile behind his white surgical mask. He was already in love--I knew that look. After we admired the baby together, I fell asleep, and Jep took his newborn daughter out to meet the family. He told me later he bawled like a baby. Later, when she went to the hospital nursery, Jep kept going over there to stare at her. I think he was in shock and overwhelmed and excited. Lily had a light creamy complexion and little pink rosebud lips, and she was born December 26, 2002. Despite the rough pregnancy, she was perfect. God answered our prayers, and now we were a family of three. We’d been married just a little over a year.

Epilogue "It's a girl!" "A what?" Michael stared in shock at the midwife, who had just left his wife's chambers. "A girl, Your Grace," the woman replied nervously, perhaps worried that he would order Isabella's head cut off for not producing a male heir. A girl, Michael thought in wonder. Not for a moment had he thought his child would be a girl. For the past one hundred years, only males had been born into the Blackmore line, and he hadn't expected his offspring to be any different. "I must see them at once." Michael stood abruptly, causing the small, rotund midwife to jump with nerves. "Yes, Your Grace." She bowed fearfully—and unnecessarily, for he was only a Duke—and gestured for him to follow her into his wife's rooms. In a few long strides, he was inside Isabella's inner sanctum and rushing to the bed, where his wife lay as serene and calm as though she had merely taken a walk . "Isabella?" he croaked, tears in his eyes. "Oh, don't be so dramatic, darling!" Isabella replied with a gentle smile. "I'm perfectly all right, and so is the baby. One of the nurses shall bring her back in a minute; they're just bathing her." As though her words had been a command, the door to the antechamber opened and a second—more cheerful—midwife emerged with an armful of blankets. "Here she is, Your Grace," she said, shoving the bundle of blankets into his arms. "What, where?" the Duke asked in confusion, before looking down at the white blankets, light as a feather, that he held. There, in the midst of all the material and swaddled tight, was the face of the tiniest baby he had ever seen. "She's very small," he said in confusion to Isabella, who merely smiled. "Should she be this small?" "Actually, she's quite big," the midwife interjected, her face a picture of amusement at Michael's helpless expression. "What do you think?" Isabella asked softly, leaning over his shoulder to stare down at the baby. "I-I-I" Michael stuttered, completely overwhelmed. "You love her that much already?" Isabella teased . Unable to respond, Michael merely nodded, knowing that he probably appeared cold to the watching midwife. But his wife knew the truth, and she understood that sometimes a man didn't need words to express how much love was in his heart. And one day, his daughter would understand too.

A couple made a deal the night of their Marriage to NOT open the door of their room to anybody who comes knocking in the morning for any reason! In the morning the parents of the husband came & knocked on the door, the husband & the wife were looking at each other & as they agreed before, they didn't open the door.After a while the parents of the bride came knocking at the door to check on them, the couple were looking at each other, then the bride dropped a tear & started crying she said: "I cannot keep them knocking & not open the door, I miss them already" The husband didn't say anything & he let her open the door for her parents.Years & years passed & the couple had 5 children, the first ones were boys & the 5th was a little girl, when she was born the father was xtremely happy that Almighty blessed him with her, & he threw a Huge Party for her in Grand style, people were so amazed with his joy & his happiness that they asked him, why are you so happy with her more than you were before with her older brothers?He answered simply: "She is the one who will open the door for me"Baby girls are the comfort of the eyes of their father!They hold the key to their mothers hearts!Daughters are really unique.They care for their parents even after they are married. Its rightly said, "A son is a son till he gets a Wife, a daughter is a daughter the rest of her Life!

Until recently, it was believed that when a baby was born its mind was a clean slate on which its teachers could write its choices and prefe r enc e s . The biologi c a l evidenc e now ava i l abl e , however, shows a somewhat different picture of why we think the way we do. It shows convincingly that it is our hormones and brain wiring that are largely r e s p o n s i b l e f o r o u r a t t i t u d e s , p r e f e r e n c e s a n d behaviour. This means that if boys and girls grew up on a deserted island with no organised society or parents to guide them, girls would still cuddle, touch, make friends and play with dolls, while boys would compete mentally and physically with each other and form groups with a clear hierarchy

Soon after the doctor, Dolly had arrived. She knew that there was to be a consultation that day, and though she was only just up after her confinement (she had another baby, a little girl, born at the end of the winter), though she had trouble and anxiety enough of her own, she had left her tiny baby and a sick child, to come and hear Kitty's fate, which was to be decided that day.

Dreams change. Girls get pregnant. High school isn’t finished. College is too expensive. Babies are born. A guy gives you a ride in the rain. It’s life, Trent. It happens.

THE MAN WHO REFUSED TO BE BORN You were waiting for the right time 'Cause life can’t pass you by And here I am having another worst year of my life I was impulsive Wasn’t I? Baby why are we always fighting over pennies? When they say The real money is in war No, don’t go making enemies With a man who refuses to be born You waited for the right sign For stars to align But you can put me in any place or time And I would still want to die Baby why are we always fighting over pennies? When they say The real money is in war No, don’t go making enemies With a man who refuses to be born No, don’t go with a man who refuses The man who refused to be born And the girl who wants to die Perfect for each other

For Pete’s sake, the girl went back to work three months after Jacob was born. It wasn’t like having a baby would be that big an inconvenience for her.

Not only was Bobby Small living in a Jewish household (although I know the Jews have their place in God’s plan) but Stephenie said she’d read in the Inquirer that he was one of those test-tube babies. ‘Not born of man,’ she said. ‘Unnatural.’ Then there were those stories about the English girl being made to live with one of those homosexuals in London, and the Jap boy’s father making those android abominations.

Ironically, during that time, Charles and Diana enjoyed the happiest period of their married life. The balmy summer months before Harry’s birth was a time of contentment and mutual devotion. But a storm cloud hovered on the horizon. Diana knew that Charles was desperate for their second child to be a girl. A scan had already shown that her baby was a boy. It was a secret she nursed until the moment he was born at 4.20pm on Saturday, September 15 in the Lindo wing at St. Mary’s Hospital. Charles’s reaction finally closed the door on any love Diana may have felt for him. “Oh it’s a boy,” he said, “and he’s even got rusty hair.” [A common Spencer trait.] With these dismissive remarks he left to play polo. From that moment, as Diana has told friends: “Something inside me died.” It was a reaction which marked the beginning of the end of their marriage.

When a girl loses something, she tries to accept the loss because it’s what is expected of her. It is in her blood to lose. For example, a baby lives inside of a woman for nine months, and when it is born, it is no longer just hers. It belongs to the world. And there is the poor mother, trying to stitch up the emptiness. But the hole is too big, and the thread is too thin. That baby’s going to get away no matter what.

Korie: When I was a student at Ouachita Christian School, my senior-year Bible teacher, David Matthews, adopted a little five-year-old boy. In class that year, we talked a lot about how important it was for Christians families to adopt and that children should never be left without a home and loving parents. The idea always stuck with me. James 1:27 says: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” When we were dating, like most couples, Willie and I talked about how many kids we wanted to have. I told Willie about my desire to adopt and he was all for it. We both grew up with big families so we decided we wanted to have four kids, with at least one of them through adoption. We never knew how that would happen. We didn’t know if we would adopt a boy or a girl or a newborn baby or older child. We decided we would remain open, and if God wanted it to happen, it would happen. There were several families at White’s Ferry Road Church that adopted children, including one couple that had adopted biracial twins. Their lawyer came to them and asked if they were interested in adopting another biracial child who was about to be born. They told her they couldn’t do it at the time, but they remembered that we had expressed an interest in adopting a child. Their lawyer called Willie and me and told us how difficult it was to place biracial children in homes in the South. We were shocked. It was the twenty-first century. We committed to being a part of changing that in our society. Skin color should not make a difference.

Olivia was next. She asked, “Will my mom have a girl?” The baby was going to be born soon. Nancy knew that Olivia wanted a little sister. “It is almost certain!” she said. The line grew longer. The questions got harder. Robert wanted to know which team would win the Super

Of course, then we have to realize that in China if you are a baby girl, your life may be in jeopardy: “As we gather here in Washington, over 35,000 forced and coerced abortions are taking place today in China; every 2.5 seconds a precious baby’s life is taken; among every six baby girls, one will never be born simply because she is a girl; 500 women will commit suicide, at five times the world average rate; 3,000 baby girls are abandoned on street corners; and more than 200 children and women are trafficked into slavery,

I watch the girls fuss over the baby. His tiny features curl up in annoyance as they stroke his cheek. His name is Shimon. He is a muzinka, an only child, born late. Chavie and Mordechai were married seventeen years before they had him. Everyone was so happy when he was born. Bubby cried at the circumcision ceremony. There is no greater curse than the curse of childlessness, Bubby said to me that day we were coming back from visiting Chavie at the hospital. Like with Auntie Sarah, a mercy on her soul, who died without ever having children. “A curse on that Mengele, son of the devil, who scorched her insides with acid,” she says, making a spitting sound and waving her hand to ward off the devil. When Shimon comes home from Maimonides Medical Center there is a thick red thread wrapped around his right wrist. No way the evil eye is touching this one.