Newborn Girl Quotes

A four year old girl was overheard whispering in her newborn baby brother's ear: "Baby," she whispers, "tell me what God sounds like. I'm starting to forget." -- Between the Dreaming and the Coming True

What happened?" "This happened." He shifted his arms to reveal a bundle of tiny, knobby joints and fluffy patches of black and white. A newborn goat. "Oh, my goodness." She knelt behind him, peering over his shoulder. "Surely not Marigold?" "I told you so," he said irritably. As if she'd be intimidated by gruff words from a man cradling a newborn goat in his arms. She'd always known he had a capacity for gentleness. I told you so, too. She reached to stroke the little goat's fur. Gabriel's shoulder muscle flinched in annoyance. "My shirt was ruined, I'll have you know. Completely unsalvageable. And then this runtish little thing wouldn't stop shivering." "Would it help if I told you that I've never found you so wildly attractive as I do in this moment?" "No.

One of the main functions of a push-up bra is to lower the number of mothers who seem like mothers.

Omens are difficult and open to interpretation but if the oracle that touches your newborn dies moments later, frothing at the mouth, it is hard even with a mother’s love to think it a good sign.

Something snapped," said Madeline. She saw Perry's hand shining back in its graceful, practiced arc. She heard Bonnie's guttural voice. It occurred to her that there were so many levels of evil in the world. Small evils like her own malicious words. Like not inviting a child to a party. Bigger evils like walking out on your wife and newborn baby or sleeping with your child's nanny. And then there was the sort of evil which Madeline had no experience: cruelty in hotel rooms and violence in suburban homes and little girls sold like merchandise, shattering innocent hearts.

I had Benia's hands, Meryt's friendship, the feel of newborn flesh, the smiles of new mothers, a little girl who laughed in my kitchen, a house of my own. It was more than enough.

Evil isn't born...Neither is purity. Because even as newborns, there is something wrong inside of all of us bound to spring up and activate itself within us.

In his paradise in Lima he had spent a joyous night with a young girl who was covered with fine, straight down over every millimeter of her Bedouin skin. At dawn, while he was shaving, he looked at her lying naked in the bed, adrift in the peaceful sleep of a satisfied woman, and he could not resist the temptation of possessing her forever with a sacramental act. He covered her from head to foot with shaving lather, and with a pleasure like that of love he shaved her clean with his razor, sometimes using his right hand and sometimes his left as he shaved every part of her body, even the eyebrows that grew together, and left her doubly naked inside her magnificent newborn's body. She asked, her soul in shreds, if he really loved her, and he answered with the same ritual phrase he had strewn without pity in so many hearts throughout his life: "More than anyone else in this world.

Gabriel nudged her with his shoulder. "Look." The newborn goat was standing on his own wobbly legs, taking drunken steps. When he toppled sideways, he bleated indignantly. Gabriel started to reach for him, but Penny held him back. "Wait." Marigold roused herself and ambled over to her kid, licking him about the head until George lurched and swayed himself to his hooves, and when he nosed at her swollen underside, she allowed him to nurse. "Oh. That's lovely." Penny snuggled under Gabriel's arm. "Thank God she finally took to him," he said. "How could she not? Look how adorable he is. Best little goat in the world.

And What Good Will Your Vanity Be When The Rapture Comes” says the man with a cart of empty bottles at the corner of church and lincoln while I stare into my phone and I say I know oh I know while trying to find the specific filter that will make the sun’s near-flawless descent look the way I might describe it in a poem and the man says the moment is already right in front of you and I say I know but everyone I love is not here and I mean here like on this street corner with me while I turn the sky a darker shade of red on my phone and I mean here like everyone I love who I can still touch and not pass my fingers through like the wind in a dream but I look up at the man and he is a kaleidoscope of shadows I mean his shadows have shadows and they are small and trailing behind him and I know then that everyone he loves is also not here and the man doesn’t ask but I still say hey man I’ve got nothing I’ve got nothing even though I have plenty to go home to and the sun is still hot even in its endless flirt with submission and the man’s palm has a small river inside I mean he has taken my hand now and here we are tethered and unmoving and the man says what color are you making the sky and I say what I might say in a poem I say all surrender ends in blood and he says what color are you making the sky and I say something bright enough to make people wish they were here and he squints towards the dancing shrapnel of dying light along a rooftop and he says I love things only as they are and I’m sure I did once too but I can’t prove it to anyone these days and he says the end isn’t always about what dies and I know I know or I knew once and now I write about beautiful things like I will never touch a beautiful thing again and the man looks me in the eyes and he points to the blue-orange vault over heaven’s gates and he says the face of everyone you miss is up there and I know I know I can’t see them but I know and he turns my face to the horizon and he says we don’t have much time left and I get that he means the time before the sun is finally through with its daily work or I think I get that but I still can’t stop trembling and I close my eyes and I am sobbing on the corner of church and lincoln and when I open my eyes the sun is plucking everyone who has chosen to love me from the clouds and carrying them into the light-drunk horizon and I am seeing this and I know I am seeing this the girl who kissed me as a boy in the dairy aisle of meijer while our parents shopped and the older boy on the basketball team who taught me how to make a good fist and swing it into the jaw of a bully and the friends who crawled to my porch in the summer of any year I have been alive they were all there I saw their faces and it was like I was given the eyes of a newborn again and once you know what it is to be lonely it is hard to unsee that which serves as a reminder that you were not always empty and I am gasping into the now-dark air and I pull my shirt up to wipe whatever tears are left and I see the man walking in the other direction and I chase him down and tap his arm and I say did you see it did you see it like I did and he turns and leans into the glow of a streetlamp and he is anchored by a single shadow now and he sneers and he says have we met and he scoffs and pushes his cart off into the night and I can hear the glass rattling even as I watch him become small and vanish and I look down at my phone and the sky on the screen is still blood red.

Panic was her constant state of being, as familiar to her as breathing. She imagined that even as a newborn she'd awoken each day with her heart in her throat, asking, What will today be like? Will I forget something, or say the wrong thing? How can I make everyone happy? What if I can't?

She set the kid on the floor, and George gamboled about the room, making high-pitched, chirping bleats. "He prances. Sideways. It's adorable." The kid attempted to admit it was rather adorable. Especially the way the newborn goat made its way to him from across the room, stopping at his boots to issue an entitled bleat. He was a demanding little thing already. Gabe bent to give the kid a scratch between the ears.

But my me-gic is the thing that sees me through all those other obstacles. I may have the coordination of a newborn calf and a limited education and a hot temper, but I can see the goddamn good in everyone and everything.

At one stopover on the train journey home, Hans told his sister Inge later, he saw a young girl with the Star of David on her breast; she was repairing tracks on the line, along with other people with yellow badges on their clothes. Her face was pallid, sunken in; her eyes, beyond grief and terror. Impulsively, Hans thrust his rations in her hand. She looked up at him, then at his uniform. She threw the packet of food to the ground. He scooped it up, wiped off the dust, and picked a daisy growing by the side of the tracks. He placed the package, with the daisy on top, at her feet. He said, "I would have liked to give you a little pleasure." He boarded the train. When he looked back, the girl was standing there, watching the train disappear, the flower in her hair.

Not to waste the spring I threw down everything, And ran into the open world To sing what I could sing... To dance what I could dance! And join with everyone! I wandered with a reckless heart beneath the newborn sun. First stepping through the blushing dawn, I crossed beneath a garden bower, counting every hermit thrush, counting every hour. When morning's light was ripe at last, I stumbled on with reckless feet; and found two nymphs engaged in play, approaching them stirred no retreat. With naked skin, their weaving hands, in form akin to Calliope's maids, shook winter currents from their hair to weave within them vernal braids. I grabbed the first, who seemed the stronger by her soft and dewy leg, and swore blind eyes, Lest I find I, before Diana, a hunted stag. But the nymphs they laughed, and shook their heads. and begged I drop beseeching hands. For one was no goddess, the other no huntress, merely two girls at play in the early day. "Please come to us, with unblinded eyes, and raise your ready lips. We will wash your mouth with watery sighs, weave you springtime with our fingertips." So the nymphs they spoke, we kissed and laid, by noontime's hour, our love was made, Like braided chains of crocus stems, We lay entwined, I laid with them, Our breath, one glassy, tideless sea, Our bodies draping wearily. We slept, I slept so lucidly, with hopes to stay this memory. I woke in dusty afternoon, Alone, the nymphs had left too soon, I searched where perched upon my knees Heard only larks' songs in the trees. "Be you, the larks, my far-flung maids? With lilac feet and branchlike braids... Who sing sweet odes to my elation, in your larking exaltation!" With these, my clumsy, carefree words, The birds they stirred and flew away, "Be I, poor Actaeon," I cried, "Be dead… Before they, like Hippodamia, be gone astray!" Yet these words, too late, remained unheard, By lark, that parting, morning bird. I looked upon its parting flight, and smelled the coming of the night; desirous, I gazed upon its jaunt, as Leander gazes Hellespont. Now the hour was ripe and dark, sensuous memories of sunlight past, I stood alone in garden bowers and asked the value of my hours. Time was spent or time was tossed, Life was loved and life was lost. I kissed the flesh of tender girls, I heard the songs of vernal birds. I gazed upon the blushing light, aware of day before the night. So let me ask and hear a thought: Did I live the spring I’d sought? It's true in joy, I walked along, took part in dance, and sang the song. and never tried to bind an hour to my borrowed garden bower; nor did I once entreat a day to slumber at my feet. Yet days aren't lulled by lyric song, like morning birds they pass along, o'er crests of trees, to none belong; o'er crests of trees of drying dew, their larking flight, my hands, eschew Thus I'll say it once and true… From all that I saw, and everywhere I wandered, I learned that time cannot be spent, It only can be squandered.

I was surrounded by ripples and cascades of Light, rising and falling all around me, like immense waves in the middle of a huge ocean. I was a tiny girl-child, newborn.

But I look back on the days when he was a newborn babe, when I had to hold him all night to keep him from crying, and I long for that time. There will never be a night like that again.

It occurred to her that there were so many levels of evil in the world. Small evils like her own malicious words. Like not inviting a child to a party. Bigger evils like walking out on your wife and newborn baby or sleeping with your child’s nanny. And then there was the sort of evil of which Madeline had no experience: cruelty in hotel rooms and violence in suburban homes and little girls being sold like merchandise, shattering innocent hearts.

Diana was the goddess of the hunt and of all newborn creatures. Women prayed to her for happiness in marriage and childbirth, but her strength was so great that even the warlike Amazons worshipped her. No man was worthy of her love, until powerful Orion won her affection. She was about to marry him, but her twin brother, Apollo, was angered that she had fallen in love. One day, Apollo saw Orion in the sea with only his head above the water. Apollo tricked Diana by challenging her to hit the mark bobbing in the distant sea. Diana shot her arrow with deadly aim. Later, the waves rolled dead Orion to shore. Lamenting her fatal blunder, Diana placed Orion in the starry sky. Every night, she would lift her torch in the dark to see her beloved. Her light gave comfort to all, and soon she became known as a goddess of the moon. It was whispered that if a girl-childwas born in the wilderness, delivered by the great goddess Diana, she would be known for her fierce protection of the innocent.

Essential oils?? Why no, girl who went to my high school who is now married and neck-deep in an MLM scheme! Why did I not think to rub my flesh in peppermint or bathe in eucalyptus so I could burst forth like a newborn bäbe, fully healed and smelling like a god?

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.

Gabe watched her move to the center of the green. In one gloved hand, she clutched a leash. The other end of the leash was attached to... something furry and brown that rolled. "What is that?" "That would be mongrel with two lamed hind legs. Apparently, Her Ladyship's friend devised a little chariot for his rear half, and the dog careens around the neighborhood like a yapping billiard ball. If you think that's strange, wait until you see the goat." "Hold a moment. There's a goat?" "Oh, yes. She grazes it on the square every afternoon. Doesn't precisely elevate the atmosphere of Bloom Square, now does it?" "I see the problem." "I'm only getting started. Her Ladyship has single-handedly set us back a month on the improvements." Hammond pulled a collection of letters from a folio. He held one aloft and read from it. "'Dear Mr. Hammond, I must request that you delay completion of the parquet flooring. The fumes from the lacquer are dizzying the hens. Sincerely yours, Lady Penelope Campion.'" He withdrew another. "'Dear Mr. Hammond, I'm afraid your improvements to the mews must be temporarily halted. I've located a litter of newborn kittens in the hayloft. Their mother is looking after them, but as their eyes are not yet open, they should not be displaced for another week. Thank you for your cooperation. Gratefully yours, Lady Penelope Campion.'" Gabe sensed a theme. "Oh, and here's my favorite." Hammond shook open a letter and cleared his throat for dramatic effect. "'Dear Mr. Hammond, if it is not too great an imposition, might I ask that your workers refrain from performing heavy labor between nine o'clock in the morning and half-three in the afternoon? Hedgehogs are nocturnal animals, and sensitive to loud noises. My dear Freya is losing quills. I feel certain this will concern you as much as it does me. Neighborly yours, Lady Penelope Campion.'" He tossed the folio of letters onto the table, where they landed with a smack. "Her hedgehog. Really.

In spring the quince trees ripen in the girls' holy orchard with river waters; and grapes turn violet under the shade of luxuriant leafage and newborn shoots. But for me, Eros knows no winter sleep, and as north winds burn down from Thrace with searing lighting, Kypris mutilates my heart with black and baleful love.

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.

Eventually every woman who stays away from her soul-home for too long, tires. This is as it should be. Then she seeks her skin again in order to revive her sense of self and soul, in order to restore her deep-eyed and oceanic knowing. This great cycle of going and returning, going and returning, is reflexive within the instinctual nature of women and is innate to all women for all their lives, from throughout girlhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, through being a lover, through motherhood, through being a craftswoman, a wisdom-holder, an elderwoman, and beyond. These phases are not necessarily chronological, for mid-age women are often newborn, old women are intense lovers, and little girls know a good deal about cronish enchantment.

It had butterfly wings, like flakes of patterned wax. Under the wings it had a hairy body with tiny horns. Its fur looked very dry in the hot summer rays. It had an ox’s head, no bigger than her thumbnail, with a pink muzzle drawn into a grimace. A white splodge between its nostrils. The impossible detail of a scar on its bottom lip. There was warmth and a heartbeat in its body like that of a newborn chick.

occurred to her that there were so many levels of evil in the world. Small evils like her own malicious words. Like not inviting a child to a party. Bigger evils like walking out on your wife and newborn baby or sleeping with your child’s nanny. And then there was the sort of evil of which Madeline had no experience: cruelty in hotel rooms and violence in suburban homes and little girls being sold like merchandise, shattering innocent hearts. “I

There is a certain kind of man who is forever searching. He wanders from place to place, he looks hard into the eyes of women and men in every town, maybe he scratches the earth or wields a gun, remedies illnesses or writes books, and there is always a vague emptiness within him. It is the emptiness that drives him and he does not know even how to name that thing that might fill it. No idea of home or love or peace comes to him. He does not know, so he cannot stop. On and on he moves. and the emptiness blinds him and pulls at him and he is like a newborn baby searching for the teat, knowing it is there, but where? And sometimes such a man is handed a gift. A gift of direction. A path that is marked for him and there, yes, this will ease your suffering, it is sure. This will cure you, it will fill you up, at least for a time. There will be a home, and love, there will no longer be the sorrow when you look at a cold night sky, the sorrow as the sun rises and the mist burns away.

Before we leave, Ruth tells Adlai, "Loni's my wild child, you know." She hugs me goodbye, puts her lips close to my ear, and whispers, "Rock-a-bye, my baby girl." We get back in Adlai's truck and I stare into the middle distance. Way too much is traveling through my brain. Adlai leans over, and when I turn, he kisses me softly on the mouth. He tastes like salt and spearmint and something elemental, like a smooth stone. When we drive on, my mother's words echo--- baby girl--- and I see the impression of a cockleshell, my newborn ear, on her young arm.

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.

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.

Breastfeeding mothers’ diet to escape allergies and colic. No babies in my closest family had allergies, gases or colic. I think that is to the result of a mother’s diet we recommend from generation to generation. We do not eat any gas-forming foods like broccoli or cabbage, and we avoid allergens like red fruits. I did, however, drink a lot of milk, which can cause gases. In addition, and contradicting advice on how to stay fit after birth, I ate tons of butter. It was an obsession during that time, for I do not usually consume dairy that much. It did not cause digestion problems for my baby, but it made my milk really thick. She got nice cheeks. I think my body knew more about needs of the baby than my brain. In general, I ate meat and neutral vegetables–no sweets, no soda, and not much shell fish. It may seem difficult to limit yourself to certain kinds of food, but it is not at all. Eat steaks with sweet potato, spring beans, or salad. It is tasty, balanced and quite habitual for many Americans. Sometimes mothers do have to give up some food preferences for several months to help their babies grow healthy and feel good. My cousin, a Korean girl, continued to eat spicy food during breastfeeding. It was not good for my newborn niece, who had an allergic reaction all over her face and body and was scratching herself badly. She had red spots all over.

Children were often born to Apache squaws who were with raiding parties. The Indians would permit their squaws to go with them on their raids, and if it so happened that a child was born the squaw would be left to take care of herself as best she could, or if another squaw was in the party and chose to remain with her sister in distress, she was allowed to do so. Within a reasonable time the squaw and her papoose would come into camp and there would be rejoicing if the papoose happened to be a male child, because that meant a future warrior. But if it happened to be a female, no notice would be taken of the new arrival. I have known squaws to give birth to a child, abandon it immediately and proceed on with the party, with no apparent injury. I knew one squaw of the Apaches who gave birth to twins, and she became so angry because there were two children instead of one that she stamped her offspring to death and left their little bodies for the vultures to devour. Comanche women were kinder to their children, and the births usually occurred in the villages. A woman in delicate health was not allowed to accompany her warrior on a raid, but had to remain in camp until the looked-for event happened. They carefully nourished the new-born babe and bestowed upon their children, male and female, that motherly affection that was the child’s due. What we would now term illegitimate children were rare among the Indians. There was virtue among the Indians and it was rigidly maintained. Of course there were times when a married woman “went wrong,” in which case her nose was cut off, but it was seldom that an unmarried girl departed from the paths of decency and gave birth to a child.

In psychology, this is called "presupposition", which maintains that what we believe about others' potential affects how we treat them, and ultimately plays a part in how will manifest in the future. If, for example, an orphan girl is adopted by a king and queen and treated as a princess, she will grow up believing she is royalty. If that same girl is raised by parents who lack faith in her, who speak down to her, or, more subtly, do things for her they think she can't do herself, she will struggle to build confidence in her own abilities.

Bindi, meanwhile, was blossoming. At just six weeks old, she held her head up and reached for objects. She even tried to scoot around a bit. She pushed with her little legs and worked her way across the bed. When Steve came home from Sumatra, it was obvious how much he had missed his little girl. I had to smile when Steve sat down on the couch with Bindi, telling her of his adventures moment by moment, while she stared intently at him, trying desperately to puzzle out his words. “She really did miss you,” I said. “No, she didn’t,” Steve scoffed. Then he added, his face brightening hopefully, “How could you tell?” I knew the truth. Even as a newborn, Bindi behaved differently when Steve was around. When she saw Steve come home after one of his trips, she got excited and happy and would literally quiver with joy. Steve shared everything with her. He took her around the zoo and introduced her to the wildlife. One day he took her into the enclosure with Agro, one of our biggest crocodiles. A school group had come to the zoo, and they assembled in their neatly pressed uniforms around the enclosure. Bindi squealed with delight and looked intently at Agro. That afternoon Steve did the crocodile demonstration with his daughter cradled in his arms. The school-group visitors looked impressed and perhaps a bit jealous. After the croc show, I noticed Bindi was as alert as I had ever seen her. She was so thrilled. Joining her daddy for the croc demo became something she looked forward to. Sometimes Bindi and I would sit in the enclosure to watch Steve with the crocodiles, and she would cry until he picked her up so she could be part of the action. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I thought.

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.

I lay there, depleted and relieved that whatever used to be in my body was now out. Marlboro Man, on the other hand, was stunned. Patting me affectionately, he stared at our newborn baby girl with a shocked expression he couldn’t have hidden if he’d tried. “Congratulations,” Dr. Oliver had said moments before. “You have a daughter.” You have a daughter. In the previous several months of gestation, I’d been so indoctrinated with the notion that we were having a boy, it hadn’t even occurred to me that things might go the other way. I couldn’t even imagine Marlboro man’s surprise. “Good job, Mama,” he said, leaning down and kissing my forehead. The nurses immediately wrapped our little one in a white blanket and set her on my chest. Plop. There she was. Lying on top of me. Writhing and looking pink and pitiful and about as precious as anything I'd ever seen. Marlboro Man grasped my hand, squeezing it softly. “Wow,” he said, almost in a whisper. He stared and stared. We were totally quiet. We could hardly move. My throat began to tighten as I realized what had just happened. The being that had been growing inside of my abdomen, that had tapped and kicked and pummeled me in the ribs and bladder during those final weeks, that had brought me heartburn and exhaustion and weeks of debilitating nausea, was now lying on my chest, looking around this strange new world in which she found herself. It was the most surreal moment of my life--more surreal than any moment of surprise during my courtship with Marlboro Man, the father of this new human that had just arrived on the scene and changed absolutely everything. She had arms and legs and a nose and a tongue, which she slowly thrust in and out of her tiny mouth in an effort to familiarize herself with the sensation of air. She was a person--alive and moving around in a real world. I realized that tears were rolling down my face. I hadn’t even noticed I was crying.

She didn’t know how to express the expectedness of sexual violence, how it felt nearly inescapable. It is so common that a warning might as well be stamped on the birth certificate of every newborn girl.

But male circumcision is the means by which this covenantal blessing is to be brought about, miraculously gifting Abraham and Sarah not only with a son of their own, Isaac, but with generations of Abrahamic descendants, tracked in Jewish tradition via the newborn Isaac, rather than Ishmael, the patriarch’s thirteen-year-old son born by the slave-girl Hagar, who in the Bible is quickly rejected by his father after Isaac’s birth.

these ‘rescuers’. I can tell you as a midwife, that when a newborn is not breathing, we blow air into his or her mouth, and sometimes the baby revives. Sounds like your doctors are approaching the problem from the wrong end.

Imagine my surprise when I saw I had a few DM’s from bitches I didn’t know; I had about three different bitches telling me how they spent time with Tika, some sent pictures as proof, but the one that got me was the picture of Tika smiling down at a newborn baby girl. “Bitch all I’m saying is you’re sometimes boring. We too fine to be worried about some niggas. You had a good one, and you let him go over some shit that happened before yall was married, technically yall was still single.” Red said as we made our way into VIP, the

Mothers not only pass the harms of endocrine-disrupting chemicals on to their fetuses but on to even more distant generations. When a mother is exposed to EDCs, so too are her fetus's germ cells, which develop into eggs or sperm. "It's thought that during that exposure, the chemical can target those germ cells and do what we call reprogramming, or making epigenetic changes," says Flaws. "That can be a permanent change that gets carried through generations, because those germ cells will eventually be used to make the next generation, and those fetuses will have abnormal germ cells that would then go on to make the next generation." In the mid-20th century, scientists documented this in women who took a synthetic form of estrogen, called diethylstilbestrol or DES, to prevent miscarriages.? The drug worked as intended, and the women gave birth to healthy babies. But once some of those children hit puberty, the girls developed vaginal and breast cancer. The boys developed testicular cancer, and some suffered abnormal development of the penis. Scientists called them DES daughters and sons. "When those DES daughters and sons had children, we now have DES granddaughters and grandsons, and a lot of them have increased risk of those same cancers and reproductive problems," says Flaws. "Even though it was their great-grandmother that took DES and they don't have any DES in their system-their germ cells have been reprogramming, and they're passing down some of these disease traits." And now toxicologists are gathering evidence that mothers are passing microplastics and nanoplastics complete with EDCs and other toxic substances- to their fetuses. In 2021, scientists announced that they'd found microplastics in human placentas for the first time, both on the fetal side and maternal side.Later that year, another team of researchers found the same, and they also tested meconium-a newborn's first feces and discovered microplastic there too. Children are consuming microplastics, then, before they're even born.

One evening Steve and I didn’t feel like cooking, and we had ordered a pizza. I noticed that I was a bit leaky, but when you are enormously pregnant, all kinds of weird things happen with your body. I didn’t pay any particular attention. The next day I called the hospital. “You should come right in,” the nurse told me over the phone. Steve was fairly nearby, on the Gold Coast south of Brisbane, filming bull sharks. I won’t bother him, I thought. I’ll just go in for a quick checkup. “If everything checks out okay,” I told them at the hospital, “I’ll just head back.” The nurse looked to see if I was serious. She laughed. “You’re not going anywhere,” she said. “You’re having a baby.” I called Steve. He came up from the Gold Coast as quickly as he could, after losing his car keys, not remembering where he parked, and forgetting which way home was in his excitement. When he arrived at the hospital, I saw that he had brought the whole camera crew with him. John was just as flustered as anyone but suggested we film the event. “It’s okay with me,” Steve said. I was in no mood to argue. I didn’t care if a spaceship landed on the hospital. Each contraction took every bit of my attention. When they finally wheeled me into the delivery room at about eight o’clock that night, I was so tired I didn’t know how I could go on. Steve proved to be a great coach. He encouraged me as though it were a footy game. “You can do it, babe,” he yelled. “Come on, push!” At 9:46 p.m., a little head appeared. Steve was beside himself with excitement. I was in a fog, but I clearly remember the joy on his face. He helped turn and lift the baby out. I heard both Steve and doctor announce simultaneously, “It’s a girl.” Six pounds and two ounces of little baby girl. She was early but she was fine. All pink and perfect. Steve cut the umbilical cord and cradled her, gazing down at his newborn daughter. “Look, she’s our little Bindi.” She was named after a crocodile at the zoo, and it also fit that the word “bindi” was Aboriginal for “young girl.” Here was our own young girl, our little Bindi. I smiled up at Steve. “Bindi Sue,” I said, after his beloved dog, Sui. Steve gently handed her to me. We both looked down at her in utter amazement. He suddenly scooped her up in the towels and blankets and bolted off. “I’ve got a baby girl!” he yelled, as he headed down the hall. The doctor and midwives were still attending to me. After a while, one of the midwives said nervously, “So, is he coming back?” I just laughed. I knew what Steve was doing. He was showing off his beautiful baby girl to the whole maternity ward, even though each and every new parent had their own bundle of joy. Steve was such a proud parent. He came back and laid Bindi beside me. I said, “I couldn’t have done it if you hadn’t been here.” “Yes, you could have.” “No, I really needed you here.” Once again, I had that overwhelming feeling that as long as we were together, everything would be safe and wonderful. I watched Bindi as she stared intently at her daddy with dark, piercing eyes. He gazed back at her and smiled, tears rolling down his cheeks, with such great love for his new daughter. The world had a brand-new wildlife warrior.

At 9:46 p.m., a little head appeared. Steve was beside himself with excitement. I was in a fog, but I clearly remember the joy on his face. He helped turn and lift the baby out. I heard both Steve and doctor announce simultaneously, “It’s a girl.” Six pounds and two ounces of little baby girl. She was early but she was fine. All pink and perfect. Steve cut the umbilical cord and cradled her, gazing down at his newborn daughter. “Look, she’s our little Bindi.” She was named after a crocodile at the zoo, and it also fit that the word “bindi” was Aboriginal for “young girl.” Here was our own young girl, our little Bindi. I smiled up at Steve. “Bindi Sue,” I said, after his beloved dog, Sui. Steve gently handed her to me. We both looked down at her in utter amazement. He suddenly scooped her up in the towels and blankets and bolted off. “I’ve got a baby girl!” he yelled, as he headed down the hall. The doctor and midwives were still attending to me. After a while, one of the midwives said nervously, “So, is he coming back?” I just laughed. I knew what Steve was doing. He was showing off his beautiful baby girl to the whole maternity ward, even though each and every new parent had their own bundle of joy. Steve was such a proud parent.

Sam’s smile was all innocent, his cornflower-blue eyes guileless as those of a newborn foal. “Nice night?” She scowled, narrowing her gaze. “You don’t fool me.” “I don’t know what you’re referring to.” His lips quirked as though he was trying not to laugh. She waved a hand over him. “Your choirboy act.” Now he chuckled outright. “Honey, I’m about as much a choirboy as you are a good girl.” Heat flooded her cheeks, and she distracted herself by taking a sip of coffee. When she was more composed, she said, “You and your sister are cut from the same cloth.” “I’m the more subtle of the two.” “More devious,” she muttered under her breath. “That’s another word.” Sam grinned. “And shameless.” “I’ve never seen the point in shame,” Sam said, and pointed to her. “You’ve got mud in your hair.” She

This was the pain of being happy, something she hadn't felt since she was a girl, when the future had been full of hope and the world had been wonderful and all life's possibilities lay ahead. This was the pain of light and beauty and a man's tender kiss. It was the burn in your eyes when you looked into the bright, shining sun, and the pinch in your chest when you saw the first green shoots of springtime, and the lump in your throat when you heard the sound of a newborn baby's cry. It was life, life, life.

Why don’t we consider moving in together? While we head for this event?” She gulped. “What?” she asked weakly. “Let’s clear the debt, get Kid Crawford out of the picture, I’ll take on your upkeep rather than Vanni and Paul shouldering your food and board, and we’ll evolve into…” He cleared his throat. “We don’t have to explain anything. People will just say, ‘Dr. Michaels likes that nice pregnant girl.’ We’ll share a house. I’ll be your roommate. You’ll have your own room. But there will be late nights you’re worried about some belly pain or later, night crying from the babies. You don’t want to do that to Vanni and Paul and—” “I was just going to go home to Seattle. To my mom and dad’s.” “They have room for me?” he asked, lifting his fork and arching that brow. “Oh, for God’s sake,” she said, slamming down her fork. “You can’t mean to say you plan to just follow me and demand to live with the babies!” “Well, no,” he said. “That would be obsessive. But Jesus, Ab, I don’t want to miss out on anything. Do you know how much babies change from two to six weeks? It just kills me to think you’d take them that far away from me. I mean, they are—” “I know,” she said, frustrated. “Yours.” “Yeah, sweetheart. And they’re also yours. And I swear to God, I will never try to take them away from you. That would be cruel.” He had just aimed an arrow at her sense of justice. The shock of realization must have shown on her face, but he took another bite, had another drink of his beer, smiled. “Live together?” “Here’s how it’ll go if you stay with Vanni and Paul. Toward the end, when you’re sleepless, you’ll be up at night. You’ll be tired during the day, but there will be a toddler around, making noise and crying. And you’ll have all those late pregnancy complaints, worries. Then you’ll have a small guest room stuffed to the ceiling with paraphernalia. Then babies—and grandmothers as additional guests? Newborns, sometimes, cry for hours. They could have Vanni and Paul up all night, walking the floor with you. Nah, that wouldn’t be good. And besides, it’s not Paul’s job to help, it’s mine.” “Where do you suggest we live? Here?” “Here isn’t bad,” he said with a shrug. “But Mel and Jack offered us their cabin. It’s a nice cabin—two bedrooms and a loft, ten minutes from town. Ideally, we should hurry and look around for a place that can accommodate a man, a woman, two newborns, two grandmothers and… We don’t have to make room for the lawyers, do we?” “Very funny,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Abby, we have things to work out every single day. We have to buy cribs, car seats, swings, layette items, lots of stuff—it’s going to take more than one trip to the mall. We have to let the families know there will be babies coming—it’s only fair. We should have dinner together every day, just so we can communicate, catch up. If there’s anything you need or anything you’re worried about, I want to be close so I can help. If you think I’m going to molest you while you’re huge with my babies—” “You know, I’m getting sick of that word, huge.

Although discovering an unattended, blue eyed, newborn baby girl was not on her list of expectations, Louise was the faithful brand of woman who believed that everything happened for a reason.

No sooner was she twenty-three years old than she was twenty-eight; no sooner twenty-eight than thirty-one; time is speeding past her while she examines her existence with a cold, deadly gaze that takes aim at the different areas of her life, one by one-the damp studio crawling with roaches, mold growing in the grout between tiles; the bank loan swallowing all her spare cash; close, intense friendships marginalized by newborn babies, polarized by screaming sweetness that leaves her cold; stress-soaked days and canceled girls’ nights out, but, legs perfectly waxed, ending up jabbering in dreary wine bars with a bevy or available women, shrieking with forced laughter, and always joining in, out of cowardice, opportunism; occasional sexual adventures on crappy mattresses, or against greasy, sooty garage doors, with guys who are clumsy, rushed, stingy, unloving; an excess of alcohol to make all this shine; and the only encounter that makes her heart beat faster is with a guy who pushes back a strand of her hair to light her cigarette, his fingers brushing her temple and the lobe of her ear, who has mastered the art of the sudden appearance, whenever, wherever, his movements impossible to predict, as if he spent his life hiding behind a post, coming out to surprise her in the golden light of a late afternoon, calling her at night in a nearby cafe, walking toward her one morning from a street corner, and always stealing away just as suddenly when it’s over, like a magician, before returning … That deadly gaze strips away everything, even her face, even her body, no matter how well she takes care of it-fitness magazines, tubes of slimming cream, and one hour of floor barre in a freezing hall in Docks Vauban. She is alone and disappointed, in a sate of disgrace, stamping her feet as her teeth chatter and disillusionment invades her territories and her hinterland, darkening faces, ruining gestures, diverting intentions; it swells, this disillusionment, it multiplies, polluting the rivers and forests inside her, contaminating the deserts, infecting the groundwater, tearing the petals from flowers and dulling the luster in animals’ fur; it stains the ice floe beyond the polar circle and soils the Greek dawn, it smears the most beautiful poems with mournful misfortune, it destroys the planet and all its inhabitants from the Big Bang to the rockets of the future, and fucks up the whole world- this hollow, disenchanted world.

She imagined that even as a newborn she’d awoken each day with her heart in her throat, asking, What will today be like? Will I forget something, or say the wrong thing? How can I make everyone happy? What if I can’t?

recognisable human shapes. The models are from another planet. No photograph prepares you for the way they look in the absence of flesh. A photograph adds a stone to everybody’s image. These girls are fuse-wire thin and unbelievably tall. Their legs are like grissini, barely capable of taking the weight of their etiolated bodies. They move in an odd, careful, swaying way that is newborn and uncoordinated, like creatures who would be happier slithering

A deep-rooted part of me had always wanted to foster children one day. The forgotten. The unloved. The homeless and abused. It was a blooming desire that grew wings with every passing day. Reed was fully supportive of the idea, so a year into our whirlwind relationship, we fostered newborn twins that had been pulled from a drug-addled home: a girl and a boy. Mina and Jayce. Mina meant “love,” and Jayce meant “to heal.

When the father handed his infant to the priestess to speak its fortune the child stopped screaming and in its place she began to howl, filling the silence left behind. Omens are difficult and open to interpretation but if the oracle that touches your newborn dies moments later, frothing at the mouth, it is hard even with a mother’s love to think it a good sign. In such cases a second opinion is often sought.

You either have it, or want it Nothing else will fly. Do you know any songs? What can you play? Can you sing? Do you have a piano, tuba, or strings? . . . The musicians began vamping, What can this Rabbit cat do? Is he going to blow hot air Or fart in the rain? Rabbit turned his back to the band Like that genius Miles Davis Pulled out his stick He made a horn with his hands. This stick is so special, bragged Rabbit. As he turned back to the jam No one else has one like this. You’ve never heard it before. It’s called a sax-oh-oh-phone. Rabbit’s newborn horn made a rip in the sky It made old women dance, and girls fall to their knees It made singers of tricksters, it made tricksters of players It made trouble wherever it sang after that— The last time we heard Rabbit was for my cousin’s run for chief. There was a huge feed. Everyone showed up to eat. Rabbit’s band got down after the speeches. We danced through the night, and nobody fought. Nor did anyone show up the next day to vote. They were sleeping.

Out of the urn a size of a man Out of the room the weight of his trouble Out of the house that holds a town In the continent of a fossil One by one in dust and shawl, Dry as echoes and insect-faced, His fathers cling to the hand of the girl And the dead hand leads the past, Leads them as children and as air On to the blindly tossing tops; The centuries throw back their hair And the old men sing from newborn lips:' Time is bearing another son. Kill Time! She turns in her pain! The oak is felled in the acorn And the hawk in the egg kills the wren.

Just by bowing their heads, the travestis pulled down the cloak of invisibility that was given to them when they were baptized. They pretended to be lost in thought, repressing their terror of getting caught. Oh, to truly know fear you need to be a travesti carrying a blood-soaked newborn in a purse.

Out. But when you have a newborn, your cheapness goes out the window because you’re willing to spend any money necessary to save your sanity. That day, we absolutely needed to get the fuck out of the house.

that he was about to black out and he was glad: at that moment there was nothing he wanted more than oblivion. CHAPTER 36 Even though he was following the news closely on the radio, Dinu had trouble understanding exactly what was under way in northern Malaya. The bulletins mentioned a major engagement in the region of Jitra but the reports were inconclusive and confusing. In the meantime, there were other indications of the way the war was going, all of them ominous. One of these was an official newspaper announcement listing the closing of certain post offices in the north. Another was the increasing volume of southbound traffic: a stream of evacuees was pouring down the north–south highway in the direction of Singapore. One day, on a visit to Sungei Pattani, Dinu had a glimpse of this exodus. The evacuees seemed to consist mainly of the families of planters and mining engineers. Their cars and trucks were filled with household objects—furniture, trunks, suitcases. He came across a truck that was loaded with a refrigerator, a dog and an upright piano. He spoke to the man who was driving the truck: he was a Dutchman, the manager of a rubber plantation near Jitra. His family was sitting crowded in the truck’s cab: his wife, a newborn baby and two girls. The Dutchman said he’d managed to get out just ahead of the Japanese. His advice to Dinu was to leave as soon as possible—not to make the mistake of waiting until the last minute. That night, at Morningside, Dinu told Alison exactly what the Dutchman had said. They looked at each other in silence: they had been over the subject several times before. They knew they had very few choices. If they went by road, one of them would have to stay behind—the estate’s truck was in no shape to make the long journey to Singapore and the Daytona would not be able to carry more than two passengers over the

A young man married is a man that’s marred.’ That’s a golden rule, Arthur; take it to heart. Anne Hathaway, I have not a doubt, suggested it; experience is the sole abestos, only unluckily one seldom gets it before one’s hands are burnt irrevocably. Shakespeare took to wife the ignorant, rosy-cheeked, Warwickshire peasant girl, at eighteen! Poor fellow! I picture him, with all his untried powers, struggling like new-born Hercules for strength and utterance, and the great germ of poetry within him, tinging all the common realities of life with its rose hue; genius giving him power to see with God-like vision, the ‘fairies nestling in the cowslip chalices,’ and the golden gleam of Cleopatra’s sails; to feel the ‘spiced Indian air’ by night, and the wild working of kings’ ambitious lust; to know by intuition, alike the voices of nature unheard by common ears, and the fierce schemes and passions of a world from which social position shut him out!

While Money's theory of human newborns as total psychosexual blank slates may strike a contemporary reader as science fiction, such was not the case in the mid-1950s, when it was met with almost universal acceptance by clinicians and scientists

On the way I stopped at a drugstore and bought a card, some candy, a bunch of pink and red flowers, and a box of newborn diapers. "They're not for me," I snapped at the checkout girl, who looked at me like I was nuts. "Okay," she said. "I meant, I don't have a baby. I don't want one." "Okay." "Not everyone wants kids. Some people just don't, and that doesn't mean their lives aren't complete. My life is plenty complete." "Right," she said, glancing around. I grabbed the bags and got out of there before the poor thing called security on me.

Newborn boys, on average, are actually more emotionally reactive than girls. For example, studies show that baby boys cry more than baby girls when they are frustrated or upset.

The truth is that the poor are as ravening wolves, as cunning as foxes and as lecherous as he-goats. I do not say this of all the poor but of a great many of them, for poverty never made any man better. It is easy not to tell lies when you are not afraid, not to steal when you are not hungry, But the person who acquires the habit of lying and stealing soon becomes like a beast. I have seen mothers sell their daughters. I have seen mothers abandon their newborn babes in the fields. I have seen men mutilate their children to make them better beggars. I have seen sons leave their aged fathers to starve because they themselves were hungry, and ten lepers band together to abduct and rape a girl, and great oafs steal alms from the blind, and cripples torture children and bind them with chains to stop their running off with the takings. I have seen people seek shelter with peasants and then make off in the night, taking with them the last sack of flour. The rich who rob the poor do not know what they do, but the poor man who robs the poor is an eater of human flesh. -- pg 98

Fudge Fudge. Call the Judge. Momma’s gotta a newborn baby. It ain’t no boy. It ain’t no girl. It’s just an ordinary baby.

In the wake of the Great Famine of 1847, nearly one million immigrants fled Ireland for the United States. Among them was a farmer from Wexford County, Patrick Kehoe. Leaving his wife and seven children behind until he could establish himself in the New World, he first settled in Howard County, Maryland, where he found work as a stonemason. In 1850, he sent for his oldest son, Philip, a strapping seventeen-year-old. The rest of the family followed in 1851. By then, Michigan Fever—as the great surge of settlers during the 1830s came to be known—had subsided. Still, there was plenty of cheap and attractive land to be had for pioneering immigrants from the East. In 1855, Philip Kehoe, then twenty-two, left his family in Maryland and journeyed westward, settling in Lenawee County, roughly one hundred miles southeast of Bath. For two years, he worked as a hired hand, saving enough money to purchase 80 acres of timberland. That land became the basis of what would eventually expand into a flourishing 490-acre farm.1 In late 1858, he wed his first wife, twenty-six-year-old Mary Mellon, an Irish orphan raised by her uncle, a Catholic priest, who brought her to America when she was twenty. She died just two and a half years after her marriage, leaving Philip with their two young daughters, Lydia and a newborn girl named after her mother.2 Philip married again roughly three years later, in 1864. His second wife, twenty-nine at the time of their wedding, was the former Mary McGovern, a native New Yorker who had immigrated to Michigan with her parents when she was five. By the time of her death in 1890, at the age of fifty-five, she had borne Philip nine children: six girls and three boys. From the few extant documents that shed light on Philip Kehoe’s life during the twenty-six years of his second marriage, a picture emerges of a shrewd, industrious, civic-minded family man, an epitome of the immigrant success story.

BABY FASHION TRENDS 2021 AND BEYOND Fashion for babies is fun - dressing up the babies in the tiniest adorable attires. Relished with excitement, all mommies want to keep their little ones on top of the fashion trends. Even before they're born, their wardrobe is well stocked, with piles of new onesies, dungarees, dresses for little girls, and a range of shorts for boys. Well, before you know, these adorable munchkins grow up within a blink of an eye, as you're stunned how quickly they grew out of their wardrobe. Whether you're soon to become a new mommy or already have your little one playing around, you've come to the right place to find all sorts of options to endearingly dress up the tiny souls. With the fascinating boom in baby apparel in the last few decades, new and adorable trends are revealed each year. Passionate as ever, you would want to try out the styles on your baby. Though your little one might not know what they're wearing, but just a few years - actually months – later, the way you dress them will reflect in the fashion sense and personality they develop! While you would want the trendiest closet for your newborn and toddlers, keep in mind that children feel the most comfortable when their clothes do not pose an obstacle in their flexibility and freedom. Dressed up in stylish yet practical clothes would give your little one freedom of self-expression as they indulge in their innocence. Therefore, when dressing up your kids, keeping a tonal mixture of style and comfort is vital. At Motheringo, we understand your mommy concerns to buy chic yet affordable clothing for your little ones. Stocked with a range of collections offering greater value of money, our clothes are aligned with your budget while ensuring we provide premium quality outfits made with the finest fabrics for your young fashionista.

With abilities and strength like he has, it makes sense that he would quickly gain confidence. Confidence and independence go hand in hand. But I look back on the days when he was a newborn babe, when I had to hold him all night to keep him from crying, and I long for that time. There will never be a night like that again.’ -Dagmar, The First Girl Child.