I was only a kid when I noticed that other girls and women seemed to love babies, couldn’t wait to get their hands on them. I envied what seemed like their natural desire to nurture, to love, to care for. I also scorned it. I didn’t want to be like that, to play the role women are expected to play. I wanted it even less when I thought about the physical reality of birthing a baby, of pushing a human out of the small hole between my legs. The prospect of doing that with my own body seemed as unlikely as growing a tail.
