There’s nothing quite like the birth of a child. Children are born in our likenesses… we treasure their beauty, their innocence, and marvel as they take their first breaths outside of their mother’s womb. In a perfect world, babies are miracles. But as we know, the world is not always perfect. “… then something like a stick insect, enormous bulging eyes among stiff fragilities that were limbs… a small girl all blurred, her flesh gu
ttering and melting… a doll with chalky swollen eyes, its eyes wide and blank, like blue ponds, and its mouth open, showing a swollen little tongue. A lanky boy was skewed, one half of his body sliding from the other. A child seemed at first glance normal, but then Harriet saw there was no back to its head; it was all face, which seemed to scream at her.” — from Doris Lessing’s Fifth Child What happens when we allow ourselves to conceptualize the horrible possibilities — the terrifying consequences of childbirth gone wrong — the unimaginable monstrosity that might be born into this world, or perhaps another — the worst case scenario of what could but shouldn’t be?