Pregnant Couple Quotes

found out I really hated dancing with strangers who were trying to get up in my business, so I filled in the silence with vivid descriptions of how we’d have at least ten kids and that I knew a spell that would allow us to get pregnant so we could take turns just popping out the ass babies. I’m pretty sure a couple of them all but ran by the time we’d finished. I waved after them.

You think we woke them?” She turned on her side and leaned on her hand. The way her breast rolled on top of the other one almost made me hard again. “No. I think we were fairly quiet, considering.” She blinked a couple times and frowned at me. “Considering what?” “Considering that I came so hard, if I didn’t have a condom on, you’d already be pregnant with quadruplets.

Very often the test of one's allegiance to a cause or to a people is precisely the willingness to stay the course when things are boring, to run the risk of repeating an old argument just one more time, or of going one more round with a hostile or (much worse) indifferent audience. I first became involved with the Czech opposition in 1968 when it was an intoxicating and celebrated cause. Then, during the depressing 1970s and 1980s I was a member of a routine committee that tried with limited success to help the reduced forces of Czech dissent to stay nourished (and published). The most pregnant moment of that commitment was one that I managed to miss at the time: I passed an afternoon with Zdenek Mlynar, exiled former secretary of the Czech Communist Party, who in the bleak early 1950s in Moscow had formed a friendship with a young Russian militant with an evident sense of irony named Mikhail Sergeyevitch Gorbachev. In 1988 I was arrested in Prague for attending a meeting of one of Vaclav Havel's 'Charter 77' committees. That outwardly exciting experience was interesting precisely because of its almost Zen-like tedium. I had gone to Prague determined to be the first visiting writer not to make use of the name Franz Kafka, but the numbing bureaucracy got the better of me. When I asked why I was being detained, I was told that I had no need to know the reason! Totalitarianism is itself a cliché (as well as a tundra of pulverizing boredom) and it forced the cliché upon me in turn. I did have to mention Kafka in my eventual story. The regime fell not very much later, as I had slightly foreseen in that same piece that it would. (I had happened to notice that the young Czechs arrested with us were not at all frightened by the police, as their older mentors had been and still were, and also that the police themselves were almost fatigued by their job. This was totalitarianism practically yawning itself to death.) A couple of years after that I was overcome to be invited to an official reception in Prague, to thank those who had been consistent friends through the stultifying years of what 'The Party' had so perfectly termed 'normalization.' As with my tiny moment with Nelson Mandela, a whole historic stretch of nothingness and depression, combined with the long and deep insult of having to be pushed around by boring and mediocre people, could be at least partially canceled and annealed by one flash of humor and charm and generosity.

Actually I am pretty pregnant with the news Sid brought me, but glad we have not spread it. The girls look very happy. With their heads bound up in babushkas they might be out of the peasant chorus of a Russian opera. Any minute now we will sing and dance to the balalaika. Charity is tall and striking; Sally smaller, darker, quieter. One dazzles, the other warms. In a couple of hours I will need sympathy, but for now I like being washed by the wind.

And so this added consideration - that she never get pregnant - contributed to the moderation of their coupling, which was almost always managed under conditions harsh enough to win the approval of New England's founding fathers

Some couples are married because they fell in love. Some are married because the woman fell pregnant.

I got out of the car and slammed its door. How matter-of-fact, how square that slam sounded in the void of the sunless day! Woof, commented the dog perfunctorily. I pressed the bell button, it vibrated through my whole system. Personne. Je resonne. Repersonne. From what depth this re-nonsense? Woof, said the dog. A rush and a shuffle, and woosh-woosh went the door. Couple of inches taller. Pink-rimmed glasses. New, heaped-up hairdo, new ears. How simple! The moment, the death that I had kept conjuring up for three years was as simple as a bit of dry wood. She was frankly and hugely pregnant. Her head looked smaller (only two seconds had passed really, but let me give them as much wooden duration as life can stand), and her pale-freckled cheeks were hollowed, and her bare shins and arms had lost all their tan, so that the little hairs showed. She wore a brown, sleeveless felt dress and sloppy felt slippers. 'We-e-ell!' she exhaled after a pause with all the emphasis of wonder and welcome. 'Husband at home?' I croaked, fist in pocket. I could not kill her, of course, as some have thought. You see I loved her. It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.

Bronagh when she entered the room. She placed her hands on her hips and sighed, deeply. “I’m so fat.” She frowned. “It 58/668 took me a whole sixty seconds to get meself off the toilet.” I snickered while Dominic tilted his head to the side. “Fat?” he questioned. “And here I thought you were pregnant. Man, you had me fooled.” Bronagh gave him the finger. “Bite me, Fuckface. You did this to me.

Contemplations on the belly When pregnant with our first, Dean and I attended a child birth class. There were about 15 other couples, all 6-8 months pregnant, just like us. As an introduction, the teacher asked us to each share what had been our favorite part of pregnancy and least favorite part. I was surprised by how many of the men and women there couldn't name a favorite part. When it was my turn, I said, "My least favorite has been the nausea, and my favorite is the belly." We were sitting in the back of the room, so it was noticeable when several heads turned to get a look at me. Dean then spoke. "Yeah, my least favorite is that she was sick, and my favorite is the belly too." Now nearly every head turned to gander incredulously at the freaky couple who actually liked the belly. Dean and I laughed about it later, but we were sincere. The belly is cool. It is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World, an unmistakable sign of what's going on inside, the wigwam for our little squirmer, the mark of my undeniable superpower of baby-making. I loved the belly and its freaky awesomeness, and especially the flutters, kicks, and bumps from within. Twins belly is a whole new species. I marvel at the amazing uterus within and skin without with their unceasing ability to stretch (Reed Richards would be impressed). I still have great admiration for the belly, but I also fear it. Sometimes I wonder if I should build a shrine to it, light some incense, offer up gifts in an attempt both to honor it and avoid its wrath. It does seem more like a mythic monstrosity you'd be wise not to awaken than a bulbous appendage. It had NEEDS. It has DEMANDS. It will not be taken lightly (believe me, there's nothing light about it). I must give it its own throne, lying sideways atop a cushion, or it will CRUSH MY ORGANS. This belly is its own creature, is subject to different laws of growth and gravity. No, it's not a cute belly, not a benevolent belly. It would have tea with Fin Fang Foom; it would shake hands with Cthulhu. It's no wonder I'm so restless at night, having to sleep with one eye open. Nevertheless, I honor you, belly, and the work you do to protect and grow my two precious daughters inside. Truly, they must be even more powerful than you to keep you enslaved to their needs. It's quite clear that out of all of us, I'm certainly not the one in control. I am here to do your bidding, belly and babies. I am your humble servant.

Your genes want you to get pregnant, and hormones are their magic wand.

You know, it can’t be easy for a woman who believes she’s infertile to spend a lot of time around pregnant women and couples with children. I’m not saying she doesn’t enjoy being around the whole gang, but it might have played with her emotions a bit, too. Each time she sees Nat, Jules and Brynna and their men hovering over them, it’s a reminder that she might never have that.” She leans in closer and takes my hand. “And it’s a reminder that she might not be able to give that to you.

About a month after she found out about that, I got pregnant for the first time. I knew I didn't want to have a baby at all, and wanted to get an abortion. But the day I found out, I wasn't sure what to do first. I felt alone and lost and needed someone to call who I could tell. I needed help. I wasn't sure if she would talk to me again so soon after what had happened. I decided to take a chance and try calling her. When I told her, she said, "Well, an abortion is only like $500, so go turn a couple of tricks and get it taken care of," before she hung up on me. I probably should have called someone else, but I didn't know who else to call.

I stared at her - unable to accept that at one time I was growing inside her. I was once just a couple of cells. My father and my mother were naked something had to be satisfactory about it, because he came inside her and she got pregnant. She, like me, was once a baby in her mother's stomach and so on and so forth and so it goes. So it goes.

Do you think, little flower, that there will ever come a day when you regret meeting me?” he asked quietly. “Yes,” she said simply. “I see,” he said tightly. “Would you like a specific date?” “You are teasing me,” he realized suddenly. “No, I’m dead serious. I have an exact date in mind.” Jacob pulled back to see her eyes, looking utterly perplexed as her pupils sparkled with mischief. “What date is that? And why are you thinking of pink elephants?” “The date is September 8, because, according to Gideon, that’s possibly the day I will go into labor. I say ‘possibly,’ because combining all this human/Druid and Demon DNA ‘may make for a longer period of gestation than usual for a human,’ as the Ancient medic recently quoted. Now, as I understand it, women always regret ever letting a man touch them on that day.” Jacob lurched to his feet, dropping her onto her toes, grabbing her by the arms, and holding her still as he raked a wild, inspecting gaze over her body. “You are pregnant?” he demanded, shaking her a little. “How long have you known? You went into battle with that monster while you are carrying my child?” “Our child,” she corrected indignantly, her fists landing firmly on her hips, “and Gideon only just told me, like, five seconds ago, so I didn’t know I was pregnant when I was fighting that thing!” “But . . . he healed you just a few days ago! Why not tell you then?” “Because I wasn’t pregnant then, Jacob. If you recall, we did make love between then and now.” “Oh . . . oh Bella . . .” he said, his breath rushing from him all of a sudden. He looked as if he needed to sit down and put a paper bag over his head. She reached to steady him as he sat back awkwardly on the altar. He leaned his forearms on his thighs, bending over them as he tried to catch his breath. Bella had the strangest urge to giggle, but she bit her lower lip to repress to impulse. So much for the calm, cool, collected Enforcer who struck terror into the hearts of Demons everywhere. “That is not funny,” he grumbled indignantly. “Yeah? You should see what you look like from over here,” she teased. “If you laugh at me I swear I am going to take you over my knee.” “Promises, promises,” she laughed, hugging him with delight. Finally, Jacob laughed as well, his arm snaking out to circle her waist and draw her back into his lap. “Did you ask . . . I mean, does he know what it is?” “It’s a baby. I told him I didn’t want to know what it is. And don’t you dare find out, because you know the minute you do I’ll know, and if you spoil the surprise I’ll murder you.” “Damn . . . she kills a couple of Demons and suddenly thinks she can order all of us around,” he taunted, pulling her close until he was nuzzling her neck, wondering if it was possible for such an underused heart as his to contain so much happiness.

I heard Dominic practice Bronagh’s breathing tactics, and I wondered if I’d be taking care of him in the delivery ward as well as her. “I feel like I’m about to pass out.” Yep, I’m definitely going to be looking after him. “Keep breathing, you’ll be fine,” I assured him. “Where’s me sister?” “Why’re you telling Dominic to breathe?’ Ryder murmured. “He’s freakin’ out,” I whispered in response making him snicker.

Realistic expectations can make all the difference-for instance, it's normal for it to take six months to a year for a couple to get pregnant, and 15 percept of couples don't conceive within that first year.

I started thinking about all the other people living there. All those different lives. Even if they were all just cooking dinner, one guy could be making his kid's favorite to cheer her up after a bad day at school, some couple could be celebrating finding out she was pregnant...Every one of them, making dinner out there, every one of them was thinking something all their own. Loving someone all their own. Every time I was up there, it hit me harder. That kind of life: it's beautiful, after all.

[on Aëtius of Amida] Women who came to him for contraceptive advice were told to wear a piece of cat liver in an ivory tube attached to their left foot. Thought I suppose this might well keep you from getting pregnant, in the same way that wearing Birkenstocks might.

Many of us have been so brainwashed over the years — by sheer repetition, rather than by either logic or empirical tests — that statistical disparities are automatically taken to mean discrimination, whether between races, sexes or whatever. The plain fact that different individuals and groups make different choices is resolutely ignored, because it does not fit the prevailing preconceptions, or the crusades based on those preconceptions. Women make different career choices than men, and wisely so, because men do not become mothers, and being a mother is not the same as being a father. And we can’t make them the same by simply calling them both “parents” or saying that “the couple” is pregnant. Discrimination can certainly cause statistical disparities. But statistical disparities do not automatically mean discrimination.

Everywhere was filled with painful, jarring reminders of what I'd lost: an elderly couple sitting on a bench, gnarly, arthritic fingers interlaced; a handsome young man in a baseball cap whispering something in his pregnant wife's ear, his arm draped protectively around her shoulders.

Like getting pregnant was my fault – as though my clinginess, my desperate need to be loved, my insistence that we were a ‘real’ couple and not two acquaintances who had grown kind of used to each other, had finally congealed into a hopeful, delusional little bundle and sunk its roots into my uterine wall.

Much as anticipated, three months after the nuptials, Polly was expecting the couple’s first child. On December 17, 1864, the cries of William Edward Walker Nichols filled the rooms of 17 Kirby Street.7 By the autumn of 1865, Mrs. Nichols was pregnant once more, and the need for larger accommodation grew as obvious as her maternal belly.

To review briefly, in the late 1960s, men got paid more than women (usually double) for doing the exact same job. Women could get credit cards in their husband's names but not their own, and many divorced, single and separated women could not get cards at all. Women could not get mortgages on their own and if a couple applied for a mortgage, only the husband's income was considered. Women faced widespread and consistent discrimination in education, scholarship awards, and on the job. In most states the collective property of a marriage was legally the husband's since the wife had allegedly not contributed to acquiring it. Women were largely kept out of a whole host of jobs--doctor, college professor, bus driver, business manager--that women today take for granted. They were knocked out in the delivery room... once women got pregnant they were either fired from their jobs or expected to quit. If they were women of color, it was worse on all fronts--work education, health care. (And talk about slim pickings. African American men were being sent to prison and cut out of jobs by the millions.) Most women today, having seen reruns of The Brady Bunch and Father Knows Best, and having heard of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, the bestseller that attacked women's confinement to the home, are all too familiar with the idealized yet suffocating media images of happy, devoted housewives. In fact, most of us have learned to laugh at them, vacuuming in their stockings and heels, clueless about balancing a checkbook, asking dogs directions to the neighbor's. But we should not permit our ability to distance ourselves from these images to erase the fact that all women--and we mean all women--were, in the 1950s and '60s supposed to internalize this ideal, to live it and believe it.

I had only just arrived at the club when I bumped into Roger. After we had exchanged a few pleasantries, he lowered his voice and asked, “What do you think of Martha and I as a potential twosome?” “That,” I replied, “would be a mistake. Martha and me is more like it.” “You’re interested in Martha?” “I’m interested in clear communication.” “Fair enough,” he agreed. “May the best man win.” Then he sighed. “Here I thought we had a clear path to becoming a very unique couple.” “You couldn’t be a very unique couple, Roger.” “Oh? And why is that?” “Martha couldn’t be a little pregnant, could she?” “Say what? You think that Martha and me . . .” “Martha and I.” “Oh.” Roger blushed and set down his drink. “Gee, I didn’t know.” “Of course you didn’t,” I assured him. “Most people don’t.” “I feel very badly about this.” “You shouldn’t say that: I feel bad . . .” “Please, don’t,” Roger said. “If anyone’s at fault here, it’s me.

She heard new voices from inside the apartment. It was the other couple, the younger pair, Julia and Ro. One of them was a blonde, the other had black hair, and they were squabbling noisily the way you do when you’re young and think that every feeling fluttering about in all your hormones is completely unique. Julia was the one who was pregnant, and Ro was the one who was irritated. One was dressed in clothes that looked like she’d made them herself out of capes she’d stolen from murdered magicians, the other as if she sold drugs outside a bowling alley.

Diana” was the first thing out of her mouth. “I’m dying,” the too familiar voice on the other end moaned. I snorted, locking the front door behind me as I held the phone up to my face with my shoulder. “You’re pregnant. You’re not dying.” “But it feels like I am,” the person who rarely ever complained whined. We’d been best friends our entire lives, and I could only count on one hand the number of times I’d heard her grumble about something that wasn’t her family. I’d had the title of being the whiner in our epic love affair that had survived more shit than I was willing to remember right then. I held up a finger when Louie tipped his head toward the kitchen as if asking if I was going to get started on dinner or not. “Well, nobody told you to get pregnant with the Hulk’s baby. What did you expect? He’s probably going to come out the size of a toddler.” The laugh that burst out of her made me laugh too. This fierce feeling of missing her reminded me it had been months since we’d last seen each other. “Shut up.” “You can’t avoid the truth forever.” Her husband was huge. I didn’t understand why she wouldn’t expect her unborn baby to be a giant too. “Ugh.” A long sigh came through the receiver in resignation. “I don’t know what I was thinking—” “You weren’t thinking.” She ignored me. “We’re never having another one. I can’t sleep. I have to pee every two minutes. I’m the size of Mars—” “The last time I saw you”—which had been two months ago—“you were the size of Mars. The baby is probably the size of Mars now. I’d probably say you’re about the size of Uranus.” She ignored me again. “Everything makes me cry and I itch. I itch so bad.” “Do I… want to know where you’re itching?” “Nasty. My stomach. Aiden’s been rubbing coconut oil on me every hour he’s here.” I tried to imagine her six-foot-five-inch, Hercules-sized husband doing that to Van, but my imagination wasn’t that great. “Is he doing okay?” I asked, knowing off our past conversations that while he’d been over the moon with her pregnancy, he’d also turned into mother hen supreme. It made me feel better knowing that she wasn’t living in a different state all by herself with no one else for support. Some people in life got lucky and found someone great, the rest of us either took a long time… or not ever. “He’s worried I’m going to fall down the stairs when he isn’t around, and he’s talking about getting a one-story house so that I can put him out of his misery.” “You know you can come stay with us if you want.” She made a noise. “I’m just offering, bitch. If you don’t want to be alone when he starts traveling more for games, you can stay here as long as you need. Louie doesn’t sleep in his room half the time anyway, and we have a one-story house. You could sleep with me if you really wanted to. It’ll be like we’re fourteen all over again.” She sighed. “I would. I really would, but I couldn’t leave Aiden.” And I couldn’t leave the boys for longer than a couple of weeks, but she knew that. Well, she also knew I couldn’t not work for that long, too. “Maybe you can get one of those I’ve-fallen-and-I-can’t-get-up—” Vanessa let out another loud laugh. “You jerk.” “What? You could.” There was a pause. “I don’t even know why I bother with you half the time.” “Because you love me?” “I don’t know why.” “Tia,” Louie hissed, rubbing his belly like he was seriously starving. “Hey, Lou and Josh are making it seem like they haven’t eaten all day. I’m scared they might start nibbling on my hand soon. Let me feed them, and I’ll call you back, okay?” Van didn’t miss a beat. “Sure, Di. Give them a hug from me and call me back whenever. I’m on the couch, and I’m not going anywhere except the bathroom.” “Okay. I won’t call Parks and Wildlife to let them know there’s a beached whale—” “Goddammit, Diana—” I laughed. “Love you. I’ll call you back. Bye!” “Vanny has a whale?” Lou asked.

We found out that Chris would be deploying very soon after Bubba was due. I was so thrilled about being a mother that doing it on my own for six months or so didn’t scare me. The fact that Chris wouldn’t be there to share his early days weighed on my heart, but otherwise I was confident and ready. Right? You may suspect where this is going. I planned to stay out on maternity leave as long as possible, then get some help once I had to go back to work. I remained on the job until a couple of weeks before my due date. I was as big as a house and twice as hungry. Bubba-Chris’s nickname for our son-would move around every so often. Like most moms-to-be, I wanted to share the sensation with my husband. And like many fathers-to-be, Chris was just a little nervous about that. “He’s moving,” I’d tell Chris. “Want to feel?” “No, no, I’m good.” Here’s a guy who is totally calm under fire, who can deal with all sorts of difficult physical situations, to say nothing of severe wounds-but put a pregnant belly in front of him and he turns to timid mush. Men. “I don’t know what that thing is,” he said, trying to explain his squeamishness. “When the baby’s born, that’s my baby.” There’s a reason women are the ones who have the babies. Though I will admit that seeing my stomach move and poke out on its own did remind me of the movie Alien.

Halle she was able to keep the longest. Twenty years. A lifetime. Given to her, no doubt, to make up for hearing that her two girls, neither of whom had their adult teeth, were sold and gone and she had not been able to wave goodbye. To make up for coupling with a straw boss for four months in exchange for keeping her third child, a boy, with her—only to have him traded for lumber in the spring of the next year and to find herself pregnant by the man who promised not to and did. That child she could not love and the rest she would not. “God take what He would,” she said. And He did, and He did, and He did and then gave her Halle who gave her freedom when it didn’t mean a thing.

That night, after having lived with the news for mere hours, Marlboro Man couldn’t stand it anymore. He wanted to tell our families. Forget waiting until the end of the first trimester; forget sleeping on it a couple of nights. Something important had happened. He saw no need to keep it a secret. “Hey,” he said when his mom answered the phone. I could hear her bright voice in the receiver. “Ree’s pregnant,” he blurted out, as open as he’d been in the first weeks of our relationship. “Yep,” he continued, answering his mom’s questions. “We’re pretty excited.” He and his mom continued chatting. I could hear her excitement, too. When the call ended, he handed me the portable phone. “Do you want to call your folks?” he asked. He would have called the newspaper if it had been open.

In the weeks leading up to the Detroit rebellion, three incidents exacerbated racial tensions. On June 12, a mob of more than eighty whites waged a miniriot and smoke-bombed the house of an interracial married couple—a black man and a white woman—who had moved into a suburban white neighborhood. On June 23, a black couple—Mr. Thomas, who worked at a local Ford plant, and Ms. Thomas, his pregnant wife—went to Rouge Park in a white neighborhood. A mob of more than fifteen whites harassed them, threatened to rape Mrs. Thomas, cut the wires on their car so they could not leave, and then shot Mr. Thomas three times, killing him and causing Ms. Thomas to miscarry. Six of the whites were arrested, but only one was charged, and he was eventually let off by a jury. In fact, at that time, no white had ever been found guilty of murdering a black person in Detroit.

No—uh—no, I’m good.” I hold up a sleeve of crackers. “You were right, Paige isn’t feeling well. I thought I’d get her something to eat.” Lame lame lame lame. She’s going to see right through this whole cracker ploy for what it is. Attempts to settle her pregnant daughter’s stomach. Mrs. Nichols lets out an audible sigh as her brow puckers in sympathy. “Poor thing. Those cramps have always been such a nightmare. For that reason alone, I wish she’d remained on the Pill.” For the second time in as many days, everything stops. My breathing. My heart. And I’m pretty sure the couple seconds it takes for her words to register and their meaning to sink in, time grinds to a halt too. Paige’s mother chokes back a laugh as she takes in my expression. “Oh dear, weren’t you supposed to know that I knew my daughter was on the Pill? Or is it me talking about a woman’s cycle that embarrassed you?” she asks, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. I

Why can't we sit together? What's the point of seat reservations,anyway? The bored woman calls my section next,and I think terrible thoughts about her as she slides my ticket through her machine. At least I have a window seat. The middle and aisle are occupied with more businessmen. I'm reaching for my book again-it's going to be a long flight-when a polite English accent speaks to the man beside me. "Pardon me,but I wonder if you wouldn't mind switching seats.You see,that's my girlfriend there,and she's pregnant. And since she gets a bit ill on airplanes,I thought she might need someone to hold back her hair when...well..." St. Clair holds up the courtesy barf bag and shakes it around. The paper crinkles dramatically. The man sprints off the seat as my face flames. His pregnant girlfriend? "Thank you.I was in forty-five G." He slides into the vacated chair and waits for the man to disappear before speaking again. The guy onhis other side stares at us in horror,but St. Clair doesn't care. "They had me next to some horrible couple in matching Hawaiian shirts. There's no reason to suffer this flight alone when we can suffer it together." "That's flattering,thanks." But I laugh,and he looks pleased-until takeoff, when he claws the armrest and turns a color disturbingy similar to key lime pie. I distract him with a story about the time I broke my arm playing Peter Pan. It turned out there was more to flying than thinking happy thoughts and jumping out a window. St. Clair relaxes once we're above the clouds. Time passes quickly for an eight-hour flight. We don't talk about what waits on the other side of the ocean. Not his mother. Not Toph.Instead,we browse Skymall. We play the if-you-had-to-buy-one-thing-off-each-page game. He laughs when I choose the hot-dog toaster, and I tease him about the fogless shower mirror and the world's largest crossword puzzle. "At least they're practical," he says. "What are you gonna do with a giant crossword poster? 'Oh,I'm sorry Anna. I can't go to the movies tonight. I'm working on two thousand across, Norwegian Birdcall." "At least I'm not buying a Large Plastic Rock for hiding "unsightly utility posts.' You realize you have no lawn?" "I could hide other stuff.Like...failed French tests.Or illegal moonshining equipment." He doubles over with that wonderful boyish laughter, and I grin. "But what will you do with a motorized swimming-pool snack float?" "Use it in the bathtub." He wipes a tear from his cheek. "Ooo,look! A Mount Rushmore garden statue. Just what you need,Anna.And only forty dollars! A bargain!" We get stumped on the page of golfing accessories, so we switch to drawing rude pictures of the other people on the plane,followed by rude pictures of Euro Disney Guy. St. Clair's eyes glint as he sketches the man falling down the Pantheon's spiral staircase. There's a lot of blood. And Mickey Mouse ears. After a few hours,he grows sleepy.His head sinks against my shoulder. I don't dare move.The sun is coming up,and the sky is pink and orange and makes me think of sherbet.I siff his hair. Not out of weirdness.It's just...there. He must have woken earlier than I thought,because it smells shower-fresh. Clean. Healthy.Mmm.I doze in and out of a peaceful dream,and the next thing I know,the captain's voice is crackling over the airplane.We're here. I'm home.

Just as abruptly, he'd become a father. While preparing the book for publication, he'd been dating a woman named Sarah Coowe, an infectious-disease specialist at MGH. They were evenly matched in many ways: sharp-dressed, sharp-tongued, and devoted to their careers and personal freedoms to the exclusion of any serious interest in so-called romance. They spent ten months together. A few weeks after they broke up -- Sarah initiated the split -- she called to say that she was pregnant. "It's mine?" asked Affenlight. "He or she," replied Sarah, "is mostly mine." They named the child Pella -- that was Affenlight's idea, though Sarah certainly had the final say. For those first couple of years, Affenlight conspired as often as he could to show up at Sarah and Pella's Kendall Square townhouse with expensive takeout and a new toy. He was fascinated with his daughter, with the sheer reality of her, a beautiful something where before there'd been nothing. He hated kissing her good-bye; and yet he relished, couldn't keep himself from relishing, the total quiet of his townhouse when he walked in, the scattered books and papers and lack of baby-proofing.

When you've been together for a long time, it's the little things that matter. In a long marriage, you don't need words to have a row, but you don't need words to say, "I love you," either. Once, when they were at Ikea, very recently, Roger had suggested when they were having lunch in the cafeteria that they each have a piece of cake because he understood that it was an important day for Anna-Lena, and because it was important to her, it was important to him as well. Because that's how he loves her. She went on rubbing the cushion cover that was nicer in the floral pattern and glanced over at the two women in a way Anna-Lena thought was discreet. The pregnant one and her wife; Roger was looking at them as well. He was holding the realtor's prospective with the layout of the apartment in his hand and grunted, "For God's sake, darling, look at this. Why do they have to call the small room 'child's room'? It could just as well be a perfectly ordinary damn bedroom." Roger didn't like it when there were pregnant women at apartment viewings because couples expecting a baby always bid too much. He didn't like children's rooms, either. That's why Anna-Lena always asks Roger as many questions as she can think of when they walk through the children's section in Ikea: to help distract him from the incomprehensible grief. Because that's how she loves him.

Sometimes silences are pregnant and sometimes not. It is hard to know what to make of the silence of much of the New Testament about the Lord’s Supper. Perhaps it is simply an accident of time and circumstance. There was not a felt need to address the matter. What we should not likely conclude is that it was not seen as an important matter in the latter part of the first century A.D. What we can observe is that the Lord’s Supper continued to be an in-home ceremony taken in the context of a fellowship meal. We also now know it was important in both Gentile and Jewish contexts in the church in the second half of the first century, and beyond. We see no evidence anywhere in this material that clerics of any kind are in charge of the meal and its distribution. Even in the Didache, prophets, who were mouthpieces for God, are only allowed to say the thanksgiving prayer as often as they like. The low ecclesiology, coupled with the ever-present eschatology, suggest that the Didache does indeed go back to the end of the first century A.D. But one precedent in the Didache does stand out: the Lord’s Supper is for baptized Christians, and in particular for those who repent of their sins. We are on the way to the church of the Middle Ages in some respects, but we have not begun to localize or confine grace to the elements of the Lord’s Supper itself and then have it controlled by clerics.

I met with a group of a hundred or so fifth graders from a poor neighborhood at a school in Houston, Texas. Most of them were on a track that would never get them to college. So I decided then and there to make a contract with them. I would pay for their four-year college education if they kept a B average and stayed out of trouble. I made it clear that with focus, anyone could be above average, and I would provide mentoring support to them. I had a couple of key criteria: They had to stay out of jail. They couldn't get pregnant before graduating high school. Most importantly, they needed to contribute 20 hours of service per year to some organization in their community. Why did I add this? College is wonderful, but what was even more important to me was to teach them they had something to give, not just something to get in life. I had no idea how I was going to pay for it in the long run, but I was completely committed, and I signed a legally binding contract requiring me to deliver the funds. It's funny how motivating it can be when you have no choice but to move forward. I always say, if you want to take the island, you have to burn your boats! So I signed those contracts. Twenty-three of those kids worked with me from the fifth grade all the way to college. Several went on to graduate school, including law school! I call them my champions. Today they are social workers, business owners, and parents. Just a few years ago, we had a reunion, and I got to hear the magnificent stories of how early-in-life giving to others had become a lifelong pattern. How it caused them to believe they had real worth in life. How it gave them such joy to give, and how many of them now are teaching this to their own children.

She could envision Shakespeare's sister. But she imagined a violent, an apocalyptic end for Shakespeare's sister, whereas I know that isn't what happened. You see, it isn't necessary. I know that lots of Chinese women, given in marriage to men they abhorred and lives they despised, killed themselves by throwing themselves down the family well. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I'm only saying that isn't what usually happens. It it were, we wouldn't be having a population problem. And there are so much easier ways to destroy a woman. You don't have to rape or kill her; you don't even have to beat her. You can just marry her. You don't even have to do that. You can just let her work in your office for thirty-five dollars a week. Shakespeare's sister did...follow her brother to London, but she never got there. She was raped the first night out, and bleeding and inwardly wounded, she stumbled for shelter into the next village she found. Realizing before too long that she was pregnant, she sought a way to keep herself and her child safe. She found some guy with the hots for her, realized he was credulous, and screwed him. When she announced her pregnancy to him, a couple months later, he dutifully married her. The child, born a bit early, makes him suspicious: they fight, he beats her, but in the end he submits. Because there is something in the situation that pleases him: he has all the comforts of home including something Mother didn't provide, and if he has to put up with a screaming kid he isn't sure is his, he feels now like one of the boys down at the village pub, none of whom is sure they are the children of the fathers or the fathers of their children. But Shakespeare's sister has learned the lesson all women learn: men are the ultimate enemy. At the same time she knows she cannot get along in the world without one. So she uses her genius, the genius she might have used to make plays and poems with, in speaking, not writing. She handles the man with language: she carps, cajoles, teases, seduces, calculates, and controls this creature to whom God saw fit to give power over her, this hulking idiot whom she despises because he is dense and fears because he can do her harm. So much for the natural relation between the sexes. But you see, he doesn't have to beat her much, he surely doesn't have to kill her: if he did, he'd lose his maidservant. The pounds and pence by themselves are a great weapon. They matter to men, of course, but they matter more to women, although their labor is generally unpaid. Because women, even unmarried ones, are required to do the same kind of labor regardless of their training or inclinations, and they can't get away from it without those glittering pounds and pence. Years spent scraping shit out of diapers with a kitchen knife, finding places where string beans are two cents less a pound, intelligence in figuring the most efficient, least time-consuming way to iron men's white shirts or to wash and wax the kitchen floor or take care of the house and kids and work at the same time and save money, hiding it from the boozer so the kid can go to college -- these not only take energy and courage and mind, but they may constitute the very essence of a life. They may, you say wearily, but who's interested?...Truthfully, I hate these grimy details as much as you do....They are always there in the back ground, like Time's winged chariot. But grimy details are not in the background of the lives of most women; they are the entire surface.

She was frightened, brazen, timid, wanton, appalled by herself, unrepentant. Adultery lit her from within, like the ashen mantle of a lamp, or as if an entire house of gauzy hangings and partitions were ignited but refused to be consumed and, rather, billowed and glowed, its structure incandescent. That she had courted him; that she was simultaneously proud and careless of her pregnancy; that she would sleep with him; that her father had been an inflexible family-proud minor navy deskman; that her mother had married a laundromat entrepreneur; that by both birth and marriage she was above him in the social scale; that she would take his blood-stuffed prick into the floral surfaces of her mouth; that there had been a Jew she had refound in him; that her mind in the midst of love’s throes could be as dry and straight-seeking as a man’s; that her fabric was delicate and fragile and burned with another life; that she was his slave; that he was her hired man; that she was frightened—compared to these shifting and luminous transparencies, Angela was a lump, a barrier, a boarded door. Her ignorance of the affair, though all the other couples guessed it, was the core of her maddening opacity. She did not share what had become the central issue of their lives. She was maimed, mute; and in the eggshell-painted rooms of their graceful colonial house she blundered and rasped against Piet’s taut nerves. He was so full of Foxy, so pregnant with her body and body scents and her cries and remorses and retreats and fragrant returnings, so full of their love, that his mind felt like thin ice. He begged Angela to guess, and her refusal seemed willful, and his gratitude to her for permitting herself to be deceived turned, as his secret churned in sealed darkness, to a rage that would burst forth irrationally. “Wake up!

Except then a local high school journalism class decided to investigate the story. Not having attended Columbia Journalism School, the young scribes were unaware of the prohibition on committing journalism that reflects poorly on Third World immigrants. Thanks to the teenagers’ reporting, it was discovered that Reddy had become a multimillionaire by using H-1B visas to bring in slave labor from his native India. Dozens of Indian slaves were working in his buildings and at his restaurant. Apparently, some of those “brainy” high-tech workers America so desperately needs include busboys and janitors. And concubines. The pubescent girls Reddy brought in on H-1B visas were not his nieces: They were his concubines, purchased from their parents in India when they were twelve years old. The sixty-four-year-old Reddy flew the girls to America so he could have sex with them—often several of them at once. (We can only hope this is not why Mark Zuckerberg is so keen on H-1B visas.) The third roommate—the crying girl—had escaped the carbon monoxide poisoning only because she had been at Reddy’s house having sex with him, which, judging by the looks of him, might be worse than death. As soon as a translator other than Reddy was found, she admitted that “the primary purpose for her to enter the U.S. was to continue to have sex with Reddy.” The day her roommates arrived from India, she was forced to watch as the old, balding immigrant had sex with both underage girls at once.3 She also said her dead roommate had been pregnant with Reddy’s child. That could not be confirmed by the court because Reddy had already cremated the girl, in the Hindu tradition—even though her parents were Christian. In all, Reddy had brought seven underage girls to the United States for sex—smuggled in by his brother and sister-in-law, who lied to immigration authorities by posing as the girls’ parents.4 Reddy’s “high-tech” workers were just doing the slavery Americans won’t do. No really—we’ve tried getting American slaves! We’ve advertised for slaves at all the local high schools and didn’t get a single taker. We even posted flyers at the grade schools, asking for prepubescent girls to have sex with Reddy. Nothing. Not even on Craigslist. Reddy’s slaves and concubines were considered “untouchables” in India, treated as “subhuman”—“so low that they are not even considered part of Hinduism’s caste system,” as the Los Angeles Times explained. To put it in layman’s terms, in India they’re considered lower than a Kardashian. According to the Indian American magazine India Currents: “Modern slavery is on display every day in India: children forced to beg, young girls recruited into brothels, and men in debt bondage toiling away in agricultural fields.” More than half of the estimated 20.9 million slaves worldwide live in Asia.5 Thanks to American immigration policies, slavery is making a comeback in the United States! A San Francisco couple “active in the Indian community” bought a slave from a New Delhi recruiter to clean house for them, took away her passport when she arrived, and refused to let her call her family or leave their home.6 In New York, Indian immigrants Varsha and Mahender Sabhnani were convicted in 2006 of bringing in two Indonesian illegal aliens as slaves to be domestics in their Long Island, New York, home.7 In addition to helping reintroduce slavery to America, Reddy sends millions of dollars out of the country in order to build monuments to himself in India. “The more money Reddy made in the States,” the Los Angeles Times chirped, “the more good he seemed to do in his hometown.” That’s great for India, but what is America getting out of this model immigrant? Slavery: Check. Sickening caste system: Check. Purchasing twelve-year-old girls for sex: Check. Draining millions of dollars from the American economy: Check. Smuggling half-dead sex slaves out of his slums in rolled-up carpets right under the nose of the Berkeley police: Priceless.

The first time he’d cut off ears because he was there and it was being done, but that was it. He wasn’t one of those who once they were in all that lawlessness couldn’t wait to get going, the ones who weren’t too well put together or were pretty aggressive to start off with and only needed the slightest opportunity to go ape-shit. One guy in his unit, guy they called Big Man, he wasn’t there one or two days when he’d slashed some pregnant woman’s belly open. Farley was himself only beginning to get good at it at the end of his first tour. But the second time, in this unit where there are a lot of other guys who’d also come back and who hadn’t come back just to kill time or to make a couple extra bucks, this second time, in with these guys who are always looking to be put out in front, ape-shit guys who recognize the horror but know it is the very best moment of their lives, he is ape-shit too. In a firefight, running from danger, blasting with guns, you can’t not be frightened, but you can go berserk and get the rush, and so the second time he goes berserk. The second time he fucking wreaks havoc. Living right out there on the edge, full throttle, the excitement and the fear, and there’s nothing in civilian life that can match it. Door gunning. They’re losing helicopters and they need door gunners. They ask at some point for door gunners and he jumps at it, he volunteers. Up there above the action, and everything looks small from above, and he just guns down huge. Whatever moves. Death and destruction, that is what door gunning is all about. With the added attraction that you don’t have to be down in the jungle the whole time. But then he comes home and it’s not better than the first time, it’s worse. Not like the guys in World War II: they had the ship, they got to relax, someone took care of them, asked them how they were. There’s no transition. One day he’s door gunning in Vietnam, seeing choppers explode, in midair seeing his buddies explode, down so low he smells skin cooking, hears the cries, sees whole villages going up in flames, and the next day he’s back in the Berkshires. And now he really doesn’t belong, and, besides, he’s got fears now about things going over his head. He doesn’t want to be around other people, he can’t laugh or joke, he feels that he is no longer a part of their world, that he has seen and done things so outside what these people know about that he cannot connect to them and they cannot connect to him. They told him he could go home? How could he go home?

Nevaeh- I believe I am never going to go around with little dreams anymore, I will not have a contained mind; I am always going to be positive if I can, and dream big. Knowing that it all can, and will be coming true if only I believe that it will. I know that I should never get stuck in a rut, for the reason that I do not know the whole plan that has been set for me. When you think like this, you can, and will break forth; this is when you will see an increase and praise. I hope that all our dreams come true, and we can all start anew. I hope that we can think, all our choices. Now I am hoping that I can let you know that, you have an angel too. I hope that everything is going to work out for you. The angels will save you and me, in times that we are on our knees. I hope the tower and its clans will forever let me be. I hope that everything will be understood so all of you can see. (About six months back) Nevaeh- The night that I was saved differently, I am only sixteen but the time is right. I could not stand living here another day or night, in ‘The Land of Many Steeples’ in the house of lost and lonely dreams, it was time for me to spread my wings and fly away from this land of misery. The day finally came and he saved me from the hell that is part of my existence. The boxy chariot with its small oblong taillights arrived near my doorstep. He greeted me with the presence of compassion. For I was looking down from the window, yes it was supposed to just be another date night. Yes, he arrived to sweep me off my feet once again and take me away. Hope was not very pleased with the onset of him being in my life… But there was nothing she could do. At last, I was content, and that is all that mattered. She would not let me go on my dates, so I waited around until it was night outside, and she was asleep! That is when I would sneak out, and get away for a while, with him. Yet I think I got pregnant on date number one, yet I am not sure. (Looking back) I remember all the dates; we would drive through the town at night, and do all kinds of wild things. Besides, look at the stars in the back of his ford bronco truck with a blanket at our spot, as the baby was asleep inside of me, this was about four months ago, or so. (The first days together as a couple.) Some of our dates started right after my school day, he would come and get me, and I would not come home until my curfew or not at all. We did not have much money, yet we always had fun just being together. Like this one time, we went kayaking in our swimsuits on the gently flowing river, and then afterward we had a picnic lunch, simple dates, but always fun. Yeah, that is right, we only had three normal dates before; I know I was indeed going to have a baby. Our craziness slowed down a lot after that fact, yet we still went out.

A similar theological—and particularly ecclesiological—logic shapes the Durham Declaration, a manifesto against abortion addressed specifically to the United Methodist Church by a group of United Methodist pastors and theologians. The declaration is addressed not to legislators or the public media but to the community of the faithful. It concludes with a series of pledges, including the following: We pledge, with Cod’s help, to become a church that hospitably provides safe refuge for the so-called “unwanted child” and mother. We will joyfully welcome and generously support—with prayer, friendship, and material resources—both child and mother. This support includes strong encouragement for the biological father to be a father, in deed, to his child.27 No one can make such a pledge lightly. A church that seriously attempted to live out such a commitment would quickly find itself extended to the limits of its resources, and its members would be called upon to make serious personal sacrifices. In other words, it would find itself living as the church envisioned by the New Testament. William H. Willimon tells the story of a group of ministers debating the morality of abortion. One of the ministers argues that abortion is justified in some cases because young teenage girls cannot possibly be expected to raise children by themselves. But a black minister, the pastor of a large African American congregation, takes the other side of the question. “We have young girls who have this happen to them. I have a fourteen year old in my congregation who had a baby last month. We’re going to baptize the child next Sunday,” he added. “Do you really think that she is capable of raising a little baby?” another minister asked. “Of course not,” he replied. No fourteen year old is capable of raising a baby. For that matter, not many thirty year olds are qualified. A baby’s too difficult for any one person to raise by herself.” “So what do you do with babies?” they asked. “Well, we baptize them so that we all raise them together. In the case of that fourteen year old, we have given her baby to a retired couple who have enough time and enough wisdom to raise children. They can then raise the mama along with her baby. That’s the way we do it.”28 Only a church living such a life of disciplined service has the possibility of witnessing credibly to the state against abortion. Here we see the gospel fully embodied in a community that has been so formed by Scripture that the three focal images employed throughout this study can be brought to bear also on our “reading” of the church’s action. Community: the congregation’s assumption of responsibility for a pregnant teenager. Cross: the young girl’s endurance of shame and the physical difficulty of pregnancy, along with the retired couple’s sacrifice of their peace and freedom for the sake of a helpless child. New creation: the promise of baptism, a sign that the destructive power of the world is broken and that this child receives the grace of God and hope for the future.29 There, in microcosm, is the ethic of the New Testament. When the community of God’s people is living in responsive obedience to God’s Word, we will find, again and again, such grace-filled homologies between the story of Scripture and its performance in our midst.

Heck, I’ve journeyed to the Underworld with a sword and a big attitude. But Psyche made the journey with nothing but two rice cakes and a couple of drachmas. And she did it while she was seven months pregnant. Respect.

Chemicals in commercial lubricants Research has recently revealed yet another group of chemicals that can interfere with fertility: those found in lubricants. Studies show that most lubricant brands significantly decrease sperm motility and increase DNA fragmentation.547 It is therefore important to choose a brand that is specifically designed for couples trying to conceive. In a 2014 study that compared 11 different lubricants, the brand with the least negative impact on sperm function was Pre-Seed.548

The assumption that marriage existed to cement alliances between two families—an assumption as universal as it was primordial—had not easily been undermined. Only once the great apparatus of canon law was in place had the Church at last been in a position to bring the institution firmly under its control. Catherine, refusing her parents’ demands that she marry their choice of husband, insisting that she was pledged to another man, had been entirely within her rights as a Christian. No couple could be forced into a betrothal, nor into wedlock, nor into a physical coupling. Priests were authorised to join couples without the knowledge of their parents—or even their permission. It was consent, not coercion, that constituted the only proper foundation of a marriage. The Church, by pledging itself to this conviction, and putting it into law, was treading on the toes of patriarchs everywhere. Here was a development pregnant with implications for the future. Opening up before the Christian people was the path to a radical new conception of marriage: one founded on mutual attraction, on love. Inexorably, the rights of the individual were coming to trump those of family.

standing there beside this king, Han Solo and all the other characters he would eventually play seeded in him now. And then there was me, pregnant with all those people I would play: a vengeful hairdresser, a hostile mother-in-law, a flute-playing adulteress, a psychologist, a drug-addicted writer, a boyfriend-poaching actress, a boy-hungry casting director, myself, an unfaithful wife, an angry boss, myself, myself, myself, myself, and a couple of nuns.

I do not have fond memories of my ex after the first couple of years. It was all downhill once she was pregnant.

When he finished he had a magnificent house, perched on the edge of a precipice at whose feet the ocean thundered, but it was a house that knew no happiness, for shortly after Whip had moved in with his third wife, the Hawaiian-Chinese beauty Ching-ching, who was pregnant at the time, she had caught him fooling around with the brothel girls that flourished in the town of Kapaa. Without even a scene of recrimination, Ching-ching had simply ordered a carriage and driven back to the capital town of Lihune, where she boarded an H & H steamer for Honolulu. She divorced Whip but kept both his daughter Iliki and his yet-unborn son John. Now there were two Mrs. Whipple Hoxworths in Honolulu and they caused some embarrassment to the more staid community. There was his first wife, Iliki Janders Hoxworth, who moved in only the best missionary circles, and there was Ching-ching Hoxworth who lived within the Chinese community. The two never met, but Howxworth & Hale saw to it that each received a monthly allowance. The sums were generous, but not so much so as those sent periodically Wild Whip's second wife, the fiery Spanish girl named Aloma Duarte Hoxworth, whose name frequently appeared in New York and London newspapers... p623 When the polo players had departed, when the field kitchens were taken down, and when the patient little Japanese gardeners were tending each cut in the polo turf as if it were a personal wound, Wild Whip would retire to his sprawling mansion overlooking the sea and get drunk. He was never offensive and never beat anyone while intoxicated. At such times he stayed away from the brothels in Kapaa and away from the broad lanai from which he could see the ocean. In a small, darkened room he drank, and as he did so he often recalled his grandfather's words: "Girls are like stars, and you could reach up and pinch each one on the points. And then in the east the moon rises, enormous and perfect. And that's something else, entirely different." It was now apparent to Whip, in his forty-fifth year, that for him the moon did not intend to rise. Somehow he had missed encountering the woman whom he could love as his grandfather had loved the Hawaiian princess Noelani. He had known hundreds of women, but he had found none that a man could permanently want or respect. Those who were desirable were mean in spirit and those who were loyal were sure to be tedious. It was probably best, he thought at such times, to do as he did: know a couple of the better girls at Kapaa, wait for some friend's wife who was bored with her husband, or trust that a casual trip through the more settled camps might turn up some workman's wife who wanted a little excitement. It wasn't a bad life and was certainly less expensive in the long run than trying to marry and divorce a succession of giddy women; but often when he had reached this conclusion, through the bamboo shades of the darkened room in which he huddled a light would penetrate, and it would be the great moon risen from the waters to the east and now passing majestically high above the Pacific. It was an all-seeing beacon, brillant enough to make the grassy lawns on Hanakai a sheet of silver, probing enough to find any mansion tucked away beneath the casuarina trees. When this moon sought out Wild Whip he would first draw in his feet, trying like a child to evade it, but when it persisted he often rose, threw open the lanai screens, and went forth to meet it. p625

With the blow of his hammer, or the twist of a screw, he could make magical toys beyond compare. And people loved them. But Ever Everly had a secret, and it was that no one had ever loved him. He hadn’t minded, at first. If that was the way of the world, then let it be so. Yet as he grew older, and watched couples filter in together in the shy throes of new love, then pregnant, and then perhaps with two children at their side, he yearned for how neatly they fitted into one another, like puzzle pieces. And if he was a puzzle piece, he was the one missing from the box, unable to be part of the picture.

How many weeks is Catherine now? Probably too far along to fly, huh?” Thirty-seven weeks. Much too far along to fly. And my dread grew with every day that passed, knowing I’d soon have to deal with a bumbling idiot who was very much not her on a daily basis. “Catherine’s pregnant?” Elise straightened, pinning me, followed by Weston, with a glare. “Neither of you told me. Why is that?” Weston’s fingers curled around her bicep. “I didn’t realize it was something you’d want to know.” I lifted a shoulder. “You’ve only met her a couple times.” Elise rolled her eyes. “So? She’s important to you, isn’t she?” I hesitated to agree, but she wasn’t wrong. Catherine kept me running on a daily basis, and she was so easy to be around. I spent more time with her than any of my previous assistants. “Yes, she is,” I admitted. “Then I want to buy her a gift.” Elise turned to Saoirse. “What are you doing after this? We need to shop for the baby.” Saoirse rubbed her hands together. “Yes, we absolutely do. I know the cutest little shop nearby. What’s she having, Elliot? Boy or girl?” “I have no idea.” Saoirse’s mouth dropped then snapped shut. “Why am I not surprised you haven’t asked? If it doesn’t make money or help you conquer the world, it isn’t on your radar.

the Health Administration. We have some questions for you. It seems some of your paperwork regarding some of your pregnant patients has yet to be filed. We were wondering what the delay was,” “I file the paperwork that the government tells me to file. I have no control over what happens after that. Perhaps the files were lost in the massive government bureaucracy,” “Perhaps, but we still demand to know why some of your patients have very little records of their pregnancies and the health of their fetuses. I have with me a couple of records we’d like to show you, and then you can explain to us about why the paperwork is missing. Perhaps you should tell your receptionist to take a break,” ordered the man.

Pregnant ladies, new mothers, and young children can turn to a special recipe from holistic wellness coach, Ashley Neese – one she fondly refers to as the “Nourishing Broth.” Bearing the traditional recipe in mind, add 4 large carrots, celery stalks, and a whole onion bulb into a pot of bubbling water. A couple of key ingredients featured in the nourishing broth come with added assets of their own. 3 vitamin-A rich leeks are added to the mix. More than just a booster for healthy eyesight, it helps with white and red blood cell development as well. The 4 stalks of lemongrass, mostly native to Asian countries, is a rich source of vitamins A, C, and folic acid. 5-inch knobs of ginger and turmeric bring more than just tang to the savory broth. Ginger is a known reliever for motion sickness and loss of appetite, whereas the golden-yellow turmeric spice powder is an anti-inflammatory agent that treats symptoms from toothaches to menstrual pain. Finally, 1 bunch of Swiss chard stems, 6 cloves of garlic, 2 bay leaves, non-soy miso, fresh lemon juice, and half bunches of cilantro and parsley leaves complete the broth. Pregnant women are advised to drink 2 to 3 cups a day. The recipe provided makes around 5 quarts, equating to an average of 20 cups.         

In one particularly witty, stinging passage, he wrote, “Heterosexuals get drunk and pregnant, producing unwanted children; their reward is to be allowed to marry. Homosexual couples do not produce unwanted children; their reward is to be denied the right to marry. Go figure.

Come on, Melinda. You can’t avoid it forever. We both know you’re pregnant.” “Ugh,” she said, accepting the cool, wet cloth. She pressed it to her face, her brow, her neck. She didn’t have any more to say. But Jack knew. There had been tears, exhaustion, nausea. She turned watering eyes up to him. He shrugged and said, “You eased up on the breast-feeding, popped an egg and I nailed it.” Her eyes narrowed as if to say she did not appreciate the explanation. He held out a hand to bring her to her feet. “You have to wean David,” he said. “Your body can’t completely nourish two children. You’ll get weak. You’re already exhausted.” “I don’t want to be pregnant right now,” she said. “I’m barely over being pregnant.” “I understand.” “No, you don’t. Because you haven’t ever been pregnant.” He thought this would probably be a bad time to tell her that he did so understand, since he had lived with a pregnant person and listened very attentively to every complaint. “We should go see John right away, so you can find out how pregnant.” “How long have you suspected?” she asked him. “I don’t know. A few weeks. It was a little tougher this time….” “Oh, yeah?” “Well, yeah. Since you haven’t had a period since the first time I laid a hand on you. God, for a supposedly sterile woman, you certainly are fertile.” Then he grinned, fully aware it would have got him smacked if he hadn’t been holding the baby. She whirled away from him and went to sit on their bed. She put her face in her hands and began to cry. Well, he’d been expecting exactly this. There’d been a lot of crying lately and he knew she was going to be mighty pissed off. He sat down beside her, put an arm around her and pulled her close. David patted her head. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “I’m not delivering this one. I want that understood.” “Try not to be cute,” she said through her tears. “I think my back already hurts.” “Can I get you something? Soda? Crackers? Arsenic?” “Very funny.” She turned her head to look at him. “Are you upset?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry it happened so soon. Sorry for you. I know there are times you get damned uncomfortable and I wanted you to get a break.” “I should never have gone away with you.” “Nah. You were already pregnant. Wanna bet?” “You knew before that?” “I wondered why you were so emotional, and that was a possible reason. I never bought your whole sterile thing. But I don’t have a problem with it. I wanted more kids. I like the idea of a larger family than the three of us. I come from a big family.” “There will not be five, I can guarantee you that,” she said. Then she bored a hole through him with her eyes. “Snip, snip.” “You’re not going to blame this on me, Mel. I suggested birth control. A couple of times, as a matter of fact. You were the one said it could never happen twice. And then explained that whole business about not ovulating while you’re nursing. How’s that working for you so far? Hmm?” “Screw you,” she said, not sweetly. “Well, obviously…” “I’d like you to understand I wasn’t relying on that breast-feeding thing. I’m a midwife—I know that’s not foolproof. I really didn’t think it possible that… Shit,” she said. She sighed deeply. “I just barely got back into my jeans….” “Yeah, those jeans. Whoa, damn. Those jeans really do it to me. No one wears a pair of jeans like you do.” “Aren’t you getting a little sick of having a fat wife?” “You’re not fat. You’re perfect. I love your body, pregnant and unpregnant. I know you’re trying to get me all worked up, but I’m not going there. You can try to pick a fight with me all day and I just won’t play. It wouldn’t be a fair fight—you’re out to get me and we both know it. Do you have appointments this morning?” “Why?” “Because I want to go to Grace Valley for an ultrasound. I want to know when I have to have the house done.” *

I frowned but sat down, knowing it wouldn’t be much longer before someone noticed. I was wrong. It took another hour and a half. Brandon had even taken Liam from me so he wouldn’t be blocking my stomach, I had gotten up numerous times to get and refill drinks, as well as to go to the bathroom. It took Bree commenting on the color of my shirt for Carrie to gasp and Mom to jump up and literally squeal. “Oh my God! Oh my God, are you pregnant?! Please tell us you’re pregnant!” Mom rushed over and placed her hands on my rounding stomach. “Well it’d sure be awkward right now if I weren’t.” I laughed and accepted her numerous hugs and kisses on the cheeks, only to be replaced by the same from Carrie and Dad. At least Dad was more controlled with only one gentle hug and kiss for me, and a big man hug for Brandon. “You’re already so big!” Carrie was crying happily as she kissed her son and turned back to my stomach, “How far along are you?” “I’m twelve weeks, and trust me, I had the smallest of bumps until Thursday morning, and then all of a sudden this was here.” “Twelve weeks! Oh my goodness, congratulations! Jeremy Allen Taylor, get your butt over here and congratulate them.” “Mom,” Jeremy huffed a laugh and pulled Aubrey closer to his side, “already beat you to it. You guys are a little behind on the news.” That, of course, got me a couple glares and Brandon a smack on the back of his head, but soon we were all sitting down arguing over whether I was having a girl or boy.

I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” Sean asked. “Are you kidding?” Luke said. “Shelby’s already asleep. She feels like shit.” “Again?” Sean asked. “Jeez, what’s the deal?” “You haven’t guessed? She doesn’t want to tell anyone yet, but she’s pregnant.” “Luke!” came Shelby’s loud, strident voice out of the background. “It’s just Sean!” Luke yelled back. “I thought you were asleep!” Sean chuckled into the phone. “Well, kind of seems like you two don’t have to try real hard to reproduce. You might want to keep an eye on that.” “No kidding. Don’t tell Mom yet. Shelby wants to get past a couple of months. Even though she hurls every morning and falls asleep by seven every night, she wants to be sure.” “Perfectly understandable,” Sean said.

I was just about to tell you when she came bounding in the front door. Rosie doesn’t walk anywhere.” “You were just about to tell me? A few years after the fact?” “I told you I needed a commitment, that I wanted a child…children. You were adamant—you were not interested in the same things I was.” “You might’ve left out a couple of things—like you were pregnant. That red hair and those green eyes—they’ve been in my family for generations.” “Did you really think I would tell you? After the way you acted about the whole idea?” “I didn’t have the facts,” he said, anger seeping into his tone. “Do you even remember how it was? Do you remember that I cried and said it was the most important thing to me and you said I’d have to come up with other important things because you weren’t getting into all that? Do you remember telling me not to let the door hit me in the ass? Do you remember saying, ‘Fat chance! Not in this lifetime’?” “And do you remember telling me I was a child, an irresponsible fuck-around who would never grow up? That if I couldn’t settle down and have a wife and children, you weren’t interested in wasting any more time on me? Remember, Franci? But you didn’t tell me you were pregnant!” “I couldn’t! I was afraid to!” “Aw, Jesus, Mary and Joseph—afraid? You’ve never had any reason to be afraid of me!” “I was afraid you’d marry me!” “That was what you wanted!” “I didn’t want you to marry me because I was pregnant! I wanted you to marry me because you loved me!” “I did love you! I just didn’t want to be married!” “Or have children!” she shouted back. She pinched her eyes closed and took a steadying breath. She spoke quietly. “I didn’t want you to be stuck with us. More to the point, I didn’t want us to be stuck with you, regretting our accident every day of our marriage. I wanted my child. I wanted to raise her knowing she was wanted. Loved. You will never understand this, Sean, and I don’t expect you to—but when my period was five minutes late, I started to love her. Passionately. And it grew by the day. If I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure that you’d love her just as much, I wasn’t willing to take a chance on you.” “Were you never going to tell me?” he asked. “If I hadn’t bumped into you, were you—” “Yes, I was going to tell you. I was going to have to—Rosie has just started asking questions. I was dreading it, but I was going to tell you.” “Dreading it? Because you knew how pissed I’d be?” She gave a huff of laughter. Sometimes he was so dense. “No, Sean,” she said patiently. “I don’t care if you get mad at me. I was afraid you’d hurt Rosie. Reject her. Ignore her. Break her heart.” Sean

Why aren’t you in a relationship?” she asked. Duncan glanced at her and shrugged. “I was engaged years ago, but my fiancé at the time apparently got lonely while I was deployed. When I came back from Iraq she was pregnant with another man’s child. She was going to break up with me anyway. When I came home broken it just made it easier for her to leave.” Alex knew her mouth was hanging open. “She left you in the hospital? Injured?” He shrugged, moving to set the book on the table. He avoided her eyes. “She had already chosen someone else over me. Honestly, it happens to deployed military all the time.” Alex shook her head, amazed at the audacity of some people. At that moment she had little respect for her own sex, because it was usually the female half of the relationship left behind. “That is so wrong. What a bitch.” Duncan looked up at her, as if deciding whether or not her words were true. “We wouldn’t have been a good match anyway. Yes, it hurt at the time but we’re both better off for not being together. What about you? Why no ring?” Alex blinked. “Well, seems like there are more frogs in my life than princes. I’ve been in a couple of relationships but nothing epic. It just never happened.” She

McMillan’s own 1952 pregnancy illustrates how much the culture has changed: She had a baby shower. It’s likely that someone at the party photographed her. As far as celebrating and documenting, that was about it. Also, she notes, it was the woman, not the couple, who was pregnant. “We’re pregnant” was not a phrase you heard.

Illegitimacy rose throughout the eighteenth century in Britain as in Europe; the Georgian era has been dubbed “the century of illegitimacy.” But far from proving an upsurge in lax moral behavior, the rise was probably due chiefly to planned marriages being abandoned through unforeseen disasters. Traditionally it was common practice, especially in the countryside, for couples to enjoy intimate relations that were only legalized in church if and when the woman fell pregnant. But high living costs and wartime conscription, along with the Marriage Act of 1753 making weddings more complicated to arrange, deterred or prevented many well-intentioned couples from proceeding up the aisle

I want to tell you something,” he said. “I asked your sister all about your husband. Mark.” “You did?” “Yep. I understand he was a great man. A brilliant man—and kind. He did a lot of good in the world, and he was good to you. I have a lot of respect for him.” “She didn’t tell me this.” “I’ve been trying to figure out how to say this to you. I might muck it up, but you have to listen. A couple of weeks ago I let you cry alone, because I was pissed. I caught you talking to his picture and I got threatened. Threatened by a dead man, which makes me a true candy-ass.” He touched her hair. “I won’t ever do that again, Mel. I understand why you love him, why you’ll always—” “Jack—” “No, I’m going to do this, and you’re going to listen. I know you didn’t want your life to change the way it did, and you couldn’t control it. Just like you can’t control what you feel. You don’t have to pretend you don’t think about him, or miss him. And if you have those moments when you’re sad, when you wish you could have him back in your life, you can be honest with me. You don’t have to pretend it’s PMS.” He smiled. “We both know you don’t have PMS anymore.” “Jack, what are you talking about?” “I just want one thing. If I can be a sport about the fact that he’ll always be an important part of your life, can you try to not be sorry that we’re together, having this baby? Because I have to tell you, I’ve never been more ready for anything. I’ll do my best not to be jealous. I realize I’m not your first choice, but your next choice. That’s good enough for me, and I’m sorry someone died. I’m sorry for your loss, Mel.” “Why are you saying this? It’s such nonsense.” “It’s what I heard,” he said. “I heard you saying you were sorry you were pregnant, that it just happened, and you promised not to forget him.” Mel gave him a look of disbelief. “I thought you were hurt by what you heard me say—but you were hurt because of what you didn’t hear!” “Huh?” “Jack, I’m not sorry I’m pregnant. I’m thrilled! I got myself all worked up because I realized that I was more in love with you than I thought possible. Maybe more in love than I’ve ever been in my life. I had a short insane moment of feeling that I’d betrayed his memory somehow. As though I’d been unfaithful or something. It’s true—I didn’t mean for it to happen, but it did. I know I resisted, but you just got to me. I promised Mark I wouldn’t forget him. And I won’t because you’re right, he was a good man. And I respect him, too.” “Huh?” he said again. “Look,” she said, playing with his thick, damp hair. “I was upset and a little confused. I loved Mark very much. I didn’t think I’d get to feel that again, much less for someone new. Imagine how it threw me when I realized I felt something even stronger. Something even more powerful. Jack, I was telling Mark I had moved on. I was saying goodbye—it was difficult. I’m not going to be a widow anymore, darling. I’m going to be a wife. This thing I have with you—it’s amazing.” “Seriously?” “I was in this high, emotional state,” she said with a shrug. “I was tired and pregnant. Jack, I love you so much. Can’t you tell?” “Well…yeah,” he said, sitting up in the bed a little.

Harper became a little distracted watching her. This morning she wore a soft t-shirt he didn’t recognize and a pair of blue jeans he seemed to remember ripping off her a time or two. His anger faded away as he watched her lean body move. There was no wasted motion with her. It was one of the things that had drawn his eye when he first met her. She hadn’t been through the training he had, but she had a natural grace to her that was spellbinding. Cat was competent and controlled in all things, body, mind and spirit. Even at twenty-two when he’d first met her, he knew he’d been none of those things. His body had been maturing faster than his mind. His spirit had never caught up. The most complete his spirit had ever been had been when he was living with her. All of the fucked up shit he’d grown up with had faded away. There were a couple of brief, shining moments he remembered being completely content with everything in his life. Stupid things like watching her cook him a monster dinner after being deployed for months. Real food made with loving hands after living on government supplied freeze-dried crap made by machines. Playing in the snow on a trip up north, Cat pregnant with Dillon at the time. Watching her tinker under the hood of the truck with him, grease streaked on her cheek. Cat had been at the center of all of those. The past year and a half had been hard. Remembering those brilliant moments had kept him moving through his monotonous life. “I miss watching you,” he admitted. She paused long enough to smile at him, hand propped on her hip. “And I miss feeling the weight of your gaze on me.” Arousal

Wow. They really look to be in love,” Alex sighed, propping her chin on her hand and watching them cuddle, that damn dog wiggling between them. “They are,” Duncan admitted. “They’ve gone through a lot together and I’m happy for them. I think they’ll be a strong couple and excellent parents.” “Oh, she’s pregnant? That’s so wonderful,” she sighed. Duncan swallowed. Yup. Another mark on the con side. She wanted kids. He’d always wanted kids, but that had been before he’d gone to war and seen so many young men being killed over there. When Melanie had shown up at Walter Reed after he’d been injured and he realized she was pregnant, for just the tiniest fraction of a second he had felt pure joy. Then he’d realized there had been no earthly way he could have put her in that condition and the disappointment had gutted him. Melanie had cheated on him with another man, but he felt strangely detached about the cheating itself. By that time he’d seen and learned a lot about being in a relationship while in the military. Anyway, that had been many years ago. He was older and wiser now, and he wouldn’t be letting himself fall for a woman practically young enough to be his daughter and who wanted kids. God. He’d be an idiot to get involved with her. Melanie had taught him well to guard his heart. He

Easy does it, Mel. You’re in good health, you had a very successful delivery and at one time you would have said this was the answer to your prayers. Try not to make Jack feel like shit.” That night, lying in her husband’s arms, she asked, “Did I make you feel like shit?” “Only a little bit. It’s not like I tricked you. As I recall, you were an incredibly willing accomplice.” He sighed. “Incredibly.” “I’m just in shock. Stunned. Not quite ready.” “I know. Do you have any idea how gorgeous you are pregnant? You shine. There’s light around you. Your eyes are brighter, your cheeks rosy, you smile and feel your belly all the time—” “You smile and feel my belly all the time….” “I can’t believe I’m getting all this,” he said wistfully. “You and a couple of kids. A few years ago I thought I’d be alone the rest of my life.” “Do you know how old you’re going to be when David graduates from college?” “What’s the difference? Does Sam look old to you? I think I can hang in there.” “Snip, snip,” she said. He rolled onto his back and looked at the ceiling. “Everyone around me is in a mood,” he said. “Is that so?” “Well, there’s Preacher—he’s pretty prickly when it’s not ovulation day, which you might have warned me about….” “That would have been confidential.” “Well, not anymore. I think Paige might be a little put out that he told all the boys he was staying home to have sex.” “You think?” she asked, laughing in spite of herself. “And Mike is past moody. I think that’s because my sister isn’t here—and believe me, I don’t know how to take that. I want Brie to be happy. It would be nice to have Mike happy, but not if he’s getting happy on Brie, if you get my drift. I’m celebrating, I’m celebrating,” he said before she could scold him. “And this little surprise has had an effect on your mood, if you don’t mind me saying so.” “I mind,” she informed him. “I just wish things would get back to normal,” he said. And

She lives here now, Mom. With me. And it won’t be long before you can meet her, but there’s one more thing. During that short time we knew each other in Grants Pass, we had a little…ah, a little…blessing, that’s what it was. We had a blessing. Well, actually a couple of blessings. On the way. Soon.” Dead silence answered him. “It came as a shock to poor Abby at first, and I admit—I was pretty surprised, but we’re very happy about it. Happy and excited.” Silence. It stretched out. “Mom? Twins. We know one is a boy, but the other one is hiding.” Again, a vacuum. Then he heard his mother shriek, “Edward! Come here! Cameron got some girl pregnant!” “Mom! Just have a little sip of that wine!” “I think it’s going to take something a little stronger! Twins? You got some girl pregnant with twins?” He couldn’t help it—he laughed. “Mom,” he said. “She’s not some girl—she’s not a girl. Her name is Abby and she’s thirty-one.” “Cameron, how in the world—” “Now, Mother, I’m not going to explain. You’ll just have to trust me, I’ve never been careless and neither has Abby. So—here’s the deal. She’s probably going to go early, though the babies are due the second of July. Anytime, Mom. Abby wants to have her mother come as soon as they’re delivered, so I hope you can be a little patient. Twins is a pretty big—” “Cameron! Are you married?” “Not yet, Mom. Even though we’re in this together, completely, we just haven’t had time to get married. That will come—we’ll take care of the details. No point in rushing it now. Besides, we’re not going to be fooling anybody, including the great-grandmothers and great-aunt Jean, by rushing into it right now. They’re nearly here.” “Dear God in heaven,” his mother said. And in the background he could hear his father, Ed, saying, “What? What? What?” “I’ll call you the moment they’re born. Tomorrow, when I’m at the clinic, I’ll get Mel to take a picture of me and Abby and e-mail it to you. By then you will have calmed down.” “But, Cameron,” she said, “you haven’t given me time to knit anything!” He laughed again. “Well, get started. Abby’s really ready to unload. She just has to make it a couple more weeks to be completely safe.” “Oh, dear God in heaven,” she muttered.

When he was young, he had thick black hair and he roared around on a Norton Commando, giving girls rides to school on the back of his bike. That’s how he met my mom. He was a senior, she was a sophomore. She got pregnant two months later. They never married, but they lived together for a couple of years in my grandmother’s basement. My dad was crazy about my mom. She really was gorgeous, and smart. He told her to keep going to school while he worked days as a mechanic and took care of me at night.

But Psyche made the journey with nothing but two rice cakes and a couple of drachmas. And she did it while she was seven months pregnant. Respect. As she was climbing down the narrow ledges inside the volcanic fissure, she happened to pass a lame ass-driver. (Don’t look at me funny. That’s exactly what the old stories called him: a lame ass-driver. The dude was lame, like crippled. He was leading an ass, like a donkey. What did you think I meant?) Anyway, Psyche thought it was weird to see a crippled dude in a volcanic vent, just hanging out with his ass. (I’m not going to laugh. Nope. Not even a little.)

She shot herself in the stomach to fuck up a job her brother was doing—” Henry’s eyes go wide but I keep going. “They had a massive fight, don’t speak anymore—” “I know that part.” He nods, trying to keep up. “Last January, when it happened—she asked me to leave London with her.” He blinks a few times. “What?” “She wants out. She doesn’t—” I pause. “What our families do, she doesn’t want to do it.” “Right.” He nods once. “She wanted to be normal?” I shrug. “Okay—” “And she asked me to go with her and be normal. She said she loved me.” He didn’t know that till now and his face lights up, but mine doesn’t. “I said I couldn’t go.” He frowns. “Why?” I cover my face, stressed. “I don’t know! She put me on the spot—” “And now—” He squints, doing his best to track it. “Someone’s sending her flowers, you’re with Vanna, she’s with the police, you still love her but we don’t know how she feels about you?” My face falters and he gives me a look, leaning in intrigued. “Do we . . . know . . . how she feels about you?” I shake my head again. “A few months ago there was an—incident.” That’s the word I go with. “And we held hands . . . for a couple of seconds.” “Shit.” Henry sits back in his chair, blinking, processing it. “I wonder if you got her pregnant . . .

After the miscarriage I was surrounded by dead-baby flowers, dead-baby books, and lots of boxes of dead-baby tea. I felt like I was drowning in a dead-baby sea. My mother didn’t know how to help but knew that I needed her. She sent me a soft bathrobe and a teapot, and I wept for hours on the phone with her. Mostly, she listened as I sorted through all my thoughts and feelings. If I’m angry or upset about something, or even if I’m happy about something, it isn’t real until I articulate it. I need a narrative. I guess that’s something Jeff and I share. We both need a story to fit into. The Burton ability to turn misfortune into narrative is something I’m grateful I was taught. It helps me think, Well, okay, that’s just a funny story. You should hear my father talking about his mother and those damn forsythia bushes. My sisters-in-law sent me lovely, heartfelt packages. Christina sent me teas and a journal and a letter I cherish. She included Cheryl Strayed’s book Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar. Christina is a mother. I felt like she understood the toll this sadness was taking on me, and she encouraged me to practice self-care. Jess gave me the book Reveal: A Secret Manual for Getting Spiritually Naked by Meggan Watterson and some other books about the divine feminine. She knew that there was nothing she could say, but everything she wanted to articulate was in those books. Jess has always had an almost psychic ability to understand my inner voice. She is quiet and attuned to what people are really saying rather than what they present to the world. I knew her book choices were deliberate, but I couldn’t read them for a while because they were dead-baby books. If people weren’t giving me dead baby gifts, they wanted to tell me dead-baby stories. There’s nothing more frustrating than someone saying, “Well, welcome to the club. I’ve had twelve miscarriages." It seemed like there was an unspoken competition between members of this fucked up sorority. I quickly realized this is a much bigger club than I knew and that everyone had stories and advice. And as much as I appreciated it, I had to find my own way. Tara gave me a book called Vessels: A Love Story, by Daniel Raeburn, about his and his wife’s experience of a number of miscarriages. His book helped because I couldn’t wrap my head around Jeff’s side of the story, and he certainly wasn’t telling it to me. He was out in the garage until dinnertime every day. He would come in, eat, help Gus shower, and then disappear for the rest of the night. I often read social media posts from couples announcing, “Hey we miscarried but it brought us closer together." I think it’s fair to say that miscarriage did not bring Jeffrey and me closer together. We were living in the same space but leading parallel lives. To be honest, most of the time we weren’t even living in the same space. That spring The Good Wife was canceled. We had banked on that being a job Jeff would do for a couple of years, one that would keep him in New York City. Then he landed Negan on The Walking Dead, and suddenly he would be all the way down in Georgia for the next three to five years. We were never going to have another child. It had been so hard to get pregnant. I felt like I was pulling teeth trying to coordinate dates when Jeff would be around and I’d be ovulating. It felt like every conversation was about having a baby. He’d ask, “What do you want for dinner?" I’d say, “A baby." “Hey, what do you want to do this weekend?" I’d say, “Have a baby.

Eventually, when I decided to leave coaching and compete again, we got married and moved to the small town of Hills, Iowa, which is south of Iowa City. Before we knew it, Lyn was pregnant with Jake, and our family was growing. I was growing too, now responsible for three lives beside my own. I was waiting on tables a couple of days a week and earning a small stipend from the Hawkeye wrestling club. We had a small house out in the country, and we were happy, but finances were tight. Like most couples starting out, we had to work together and stay together. As a waiter, I wasn’t bringing in a lot of money, and the Hawkeye club couldn’t pay much other than assist with training expenses. We started our family, had no health insurance, and struggled to make ends meet. Things weren’t working so well. I remember my conversation with Coach Gable. His honesty gave me some great clarity. Wanting big things for our lives simply isn’t enough. We need a deep obsession to act on what we desire. It’s chosen suffering and self-learning through the deepest desire to prevail. Toward the end of my first-year wrestling for the Hawkeye wrestling club, a job at Hofstra opened up. The Athletic Director called me for a meeting about their program. A few Hofstra alumni called as well. A good friend, Guy Truicko, wanted to help me get the position.

I love it when archaeological finds speak to us so directly. When our metalwork specialists examined a couple of the broken swords they noticed that they had broken across casting flaws. This was hardly surprising, because cast bronze swords require deep, narrow moulds where air blocks can readily happen. We also know that many recent societies that employed similar metalworking techniques often treated the day when castings were to be made with special respect. Sometimes the clay moulds and furnaces were fashioned to resemble the bodies of pregnant women. Often women were barred from workshops during casting. So the casting of metal objects was seen as a form of birth. If something similar applied in the British Bronze Age, which seems highly probable to me, then it is not surprising that newly cast but flawed swords were consigned to the waters in a special place. They had been ‘born’, and most probably named, too, and therefore required appropriate disposal, with due reverence.

Could it be possible that she was mad? That she had suddenly given life to a latent but pregnant seed of hereditary distemper—a strain in the family that had been concealed from him, a quality of intellectual structure of which the girl, and the mother herself, might have been ignorant as a part of the paternal or maternal legacy ? He had kissed her often. She had never repulsed him. They had often sat together alone in the twilight hand in hand. A couple are seldom married without certain happenings having gone before. Memories of the tender green of the May of love were sweet and scented between them. It was not to be supposed that she could forget all of a sudden. She must remember everything, though she gave no visible expression to recollection by dramatization of her mood. He felt that she should know better than to act like this. She was now his wife. She could not get away from that She had always been very willing to marry him. What in the devil's name had gone wrong with the fine creature ? Yet never was his love more consuming than whilst he walked to Chepstow Place with the beautiful, chaste, animated statue he had wedded.

We are seated across from a couple of pregnant women and their partners, who glance at us over their magazines. I can imagine that we make a strange pair, but it's the way they glare at me that makes me pause, as though I'm rude for appearing this way, with my square jaw and unreadable face, in a space where they had expected someone legible.

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So why hasn’t anyone done a study comparing women’s conception rates following sex with and without orgasm? Because it wouldn’t be simple, Nachtigall said. “You’d need sperm counts on all the men. You’d need physiological proof of whether or not the woman had an orgasm. And because we know it’s possible to get pregnant without having an orgasm, you’d need a very large subject pool to prove that it wasn’t just random chance.

Hormones can act as the invisible puppet strings behind the discomfiting one-night stand, the shameless flirtation with the bellboy, the unexpected and regrettable kiss between friends. Your genes want you to get pregnant, and hormones are their magic wand.

If region and state couldn’t serve as a basis for honor, surely strong family values could. Even when they couldn’t manage to live up to their moral code—which favored lifelong, heterosexual, monogamous, pro-life marriage—they took pride in the code itself. It was not easy to live by such a code. One woman of the right had a gay brother who had been married, had a child, and abandoned both “just because of sex,” and the episode had caused an upheaval in the family. In order to avoid the pain of divorce her own parents had caused her, one woman entered a covenant marriage. (Intended to strengthen the institution, covenant marriage was passed into law in Louisiana in 1997, and later in Arkansas and Arizona. It calls on the couple to sign an affidavit that they have undergone pre-marital counseling, and otherwise heightens the requirements for entry and exit from marriage.) She soon discovered her husband was gay, and while the couple later cooperated in raising their two children, she was glad she had tried to keep the marriage together “the way it should be.” The fourteen-year-old daughter of another mother became pregnant and kept the baby. “I’m working full-time and she’s got to finish school. Frankly it’s been very hard.” And it would have been easier for her young daughter, she feels, if she had had an abortion. But there was honor in keeping the baby and “doing the right thing”—an honor they felt to be invisible to liberals.

Over time, a couple things happened. I wish I could tell you that when my health suffered, I paid attention, listened to my body, changed course. I did not. I kept going when I was sick, when I was pregnant, when I was still bleeding from a miscarriage. I kept going when I had vertigo—seasick on dry land—when I couldn’t sleep past 3 a.m., when I threw up a couple times a week in stressful situations. But what I eventually realized is that the return on investment was not what I’d imagined, and that the expectations were only greater and greater. When you devote yourself to being known as the most responsible person anyone knows, more and more people call on you to be that highly responsible person. That’s how it works. So the armload of things I was carrying became higher and higher, heavier and heavier, more and more precarious. At the same time, I was more and more aware that I was miserable. Not all the time, of course, but sometimes, in those rare moments when I let myself really feel honestly instead of filling in the right answers, I realized with great surprise that this way of living was not making me happy at all.

An incapacitous patient who becomes pregnant may be forced, against her will, to have an abortion. The judgment will typically be expressed in the language of the best interests both of the mother and of the welfare (were it to be born) of the child. What’s happening here? The maternal best interests part of the analysis is fairly straightforward. This isn’t really an abortion against the mother’s will. She’s got no (rightly directed) will. But what about the interests of the putative child? A couple of points. First: it is given a voice in the debate (although for other purposes it has no legal existence) because it is convenient for it to have it. It will obligingly deliver a speech saying that it doesn’t want to exist, and will then shut up. It’s allowed no other speech. Second: in the law of the UK and in many other jurisdictions a child cannot bring a claim based on the assertion ‘It were better that my mother had not borne me.’ It’s regarded as offensive to public policy: see, for instance, McKay v Essex AHA (1982).

Often that night Maggie finds herself standing alone, looking around the room. She has a queasy thought that all the couples here tonight will stay together forever. She worries that she, too, will go to bed with a Fargo boy and wake up five years later, pregnant with a third kid, watching television in threadbare Uggs.

Ginsburg noted that women’s equality was a less prominent theme in Roe, which had “coupled with the rights of the pregnant woman the free exercise of her physician’s medical judgment,” and she suggested that Roe might have been less controversial if the decision had focused more precisely on women’s equality.

The numbers are staggering. I swear I read somewhere that in every one thousand times a couple has unprotected sex, they'll get pregnant one billion times.