Delicate Condition

by Danielle Valentine

We all give something up in exchange for our babies.

But women with much more stressful, challenging careers than mine do IVF. I had no right to complain.

Ambition radiated off of her like a pheromone.

You don’t know that you’re not remembering. The picture in your head feels like the truth, even if it’s a lie.

The things that made you lucky could also be the things that made you suffer.

Unless someone else logged into my calendar and changed

Proof that I was no longer alone inside my body.

the discomfort was the baby, and the more I suffered, the healthier the baby would be.

the pain had surrounded me in a thick black cloud, like poison gas.

If you leave your trash outside overnight, you don’t blame the bear who comes by and rips it open, drawn by the smell. You blame yourself.

“I’ve always hated how people separate women who want kids from women who don’t, like we’re two separate species.

“There are people who will take that baby away from you if you aren’t careful what you say, Judith.”

These doctors always seemed to think women’s emotions were things to be hidden and locked away and fixed.

I stumbled back into the bedroom, wondering if a woman has ever calmed down after a man told her

I wanted the monster inside me to devour him.