Delicate Condition

by Danielle Valentine

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.

How much more was I going to be expected to sacrifice to make this happen? I’d already given my body, my hormones, my time. And now, it seemed, my mind. And I wasn’t even pregnant yet.

The things that made you lucky could also be the things that made you suffer. Io wished people would stop telling women they should be grateful for their suffering instead of trying to help them with it.

“I’ve always hated how people separate women who want kids from women who don’t, like we’re two separate species. It’s infuriating how people insist on defining cis women’s entire lives by this one choice.”