Thank-you for this powerful piece that echoes the kind of experience I’ve been through, at least once. The next phase is not to feel anger against the baby that practically killed you (and so many of us) and realise that she has been through hell as well. Perhaps that’s one reason we have problems with our teenage daughters, not exactly thankful for the female body they have been given…I add that I was in shock first time round for a year and looked at every being thinking, wow, he/she is the result of a woman’s agony..and it’s so much worse in places like Afghanistan where underfed under-age mothers die in atrocious conditions, despite all the aid they are supposed to have received…