And Now We Have Everything: On Motherhood Before I Was Ready

by Meaghan O'Connell

embarrassed, feeling a sort of pregnancy-test impostor syndrome. Like, Who am I to be taking this? It looked like a set piece in someone else’s life.

bodily vulnerability, like what if a spider crawled up my leg and up my birth canal and bit the baby?

What I really want him to acknowledge, to feel with me, is that we are standing at the precipice of death now all the time. That it’s undeniable, part of the deal sooner or later, inextricable from life. We created a death. And how could he not take that seriously?

I wanted to be worthy of my son.