“I cried with pride as I looked into the face of a midwife from the next generation of baby catchers.”

“Women's bodies have a near perfect knowledge of childbirth; it's when their brains get involved that things can go wrong.”

“Childbirth is normal until proven otherwise.”

“Don't stand unmoving outside the door of a crying baby whose only desire is to touch you. Go to your baby. Go to your baby a million times. Demonstrate that people can be trusted, that the environment can be trusted, that we live in a benign universe.”

“My generation, faced as it grew with a choice between religious belief and existential despair, chose marijuana. Now we are in our Cabernet stage”

“I was in the ecstasy of babies then. I was on a long, oxytocin high. Noone told me about this. Noone told me I would feel like a wild animal ready to kill or be killed at a moment’s notice with no hesitation at all right now for my baby. I would sit on the bed at night nursing Lally and I would imagine a lion jumping through the window. I would plan how to kill him. I knew the lion would be immediately dead. I knew that no matter what, my baby would survive.”

“Maybe I won't look so bad when you're not standing next to me.”