Your heart is mine.

I feel deeply connected to my identity as a woman. If I were to make a list starting with "I am," the first thing to come to mind would be "a woman." It is my most intimate identifying mark. It is not only what I am, but who I am.

In Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone, one of the doctors explains to the young boys observing a group of pregnant women at the clinic, "'Look at them! All happy and radiant. In a few weeks, when labor starts, they'll be yelling, screaming, cursing their husbands. They'll turn into she-devils. You won't recognize them. But now they're like angels.' She sighed. 'A woman is never more a woman than in this state.'"

It's true. Pregnancy has helped me to feel more fully feminine. I have never before felt more sure of my role in the universe. My task is great. It is miraculous. This, this is so right, so unexpectedly right.

As I have lived with the heart of a mother who had empty arms, those women who long to be mothers have always been a part of my soul. Now I feel that so much more intimately. The overwhelming joy of pregnancy is met with the deep sorrow I feel for those who have lost babies, who cannot conceive, or who are waiting.

I am a woman. I feel your pain. I connect to your joy.


We are women. We're in this together.