Congratulations! It's a Superpower
Marc Peacock Brush

She wasn't coming out without a fight. She was big at the shoulders, big-headed and growing stronger by the day. Her nine months were up two weeks ago and now there was no alternative.
The mother feels strongly about the birth canal. She refuses to humor her doctor, his measured preference for surgery and sedation. Making new things is messy. It's supposed to be painful. "This is how I can assure proper appreciation of the miracle," she says to the doctor, "by experiencing its messy pains."
Two ounces shy of twelve pounds. A monster of a miracle. A baby girl named Betsy.
Betsy rips her up, tears her down, keeps her awake at night, wide awake with fickle feeding and tortured breathing. She prevents her mother from healing herself.
One day, when Betsy gets older, these child-bearing capacities might tear her apart too. Like a dream, where a boy, a perfectly formed thing with clear yellow skin and dark listless eyes, lodges behind her pelvis. He breaks the bone before it's all over. Before she wakes up.

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