| Delicate Condition |
| 1 | Delicate Condition by Danielle Valentine Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy conception; in pain thou shalt bring forth children... Genesis 3:16, ASV PROLOGUE All mothers have one thing in common: pain. |
| 2 | Maybe that's why there are so many superstitions surrounding pregnancy. Don't go to a cemetery or your child will die young. Circling birds are bad luck. Avoid large bodies of water if you don't want to miscarry. Wear a closed loop around your neck and your baby will be strangled by their umbilical cord. |
| 3 | I think we all believe, somewhere deep in our bones, that darkness is fickle and easily placated with small gifts. My favorite superstition is the one that says more women deliver during a full moon than at any other time of the month. Transforming into mothers instead of wolves. Howling like wild things. |
| 4 | I thought my birth story would be one of the easy ones. After everything I'd gone through to get my little pink plus sign, my big fat positive, I thought the universe owed me something. Until that night, at least. The night she climbed into my bed. I was already drifting when the mattress shifted beneath me, so I'd barely noticed the arm snaking around my waist, the hand hovering near my belly. |
| 5 | The part of my brain that was still conscious assumed the arm belonged to my husband. But then she moved in closer, her thin hips pressing into me from behind, and gradually, I became aware of how she felt against me, how her body was narrower than my husband's, lighter. Hair rose on the back of my neck, but I was still too asleep to move. |
| 6 | Then, I heard her voice in my ear, that one whispered word: "Baby." That's when I became aware, suddenly and with complete certainty, that my husband wasn't the one in bed with me. I'd screamed and scrambled to my feet, but it was dark, and she ran out the door and down the stairs before I could get a good look at her. |
| 7 | It wasn't until later that I realized my only picture of our unborn baby was gone too. She'd taken it from my bedside table while I was sleeping. I think that's when I knew that things were going to get bad. It felt like a sign, an omen. Weren't there old wives' tales about what would happen to your baby if his picture was stolen?. |
| 8 | I thought of the terrible stories I used to love when I was young, stories of fairies who took children from their cribs and replaced them with babies made of wood, of witches who promised wishes in exchange for firstborn children, of predatory birds snatching babies and flying far away. |
| 9 | Stories told by women and mothers. Stories no one believed anymore. I didn't know this then, but the truth is there's no such thing as an uncomplicated pregnancy. We all give something up in exchange for our babies. Nearly everyone on this planet was welcomed by the sounds of a woman screaming. |
| 10 | DAY 14 Egg retrieval 1 My husband never called me. I always joked that this was because he didn't know how to use his phone, that he was the only tech bro in the world who still had an iPhone in the single digits. |
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Комментарии
Английским на мой взгляд не очень сложный, если уж я понимал примерно, что происходит, то и вы поймете. Советую к набору.