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b7de1d6
|
"When you took me from the witch trial at Cranesmuir--you said then that you would have died with me, you would have gone to the stake with me, had it come to that!" He grasped my hands, fixing me with a steady blue gaze. "Aye, I would," he said. "But I wasna carrying your child." The wind had frozen me; it was the cold that made me shake, I told myself. The cold that took my breath away. "You can't tell," I said, at last. "It's much too soon to be sure." He snorted briefly, and a tiny flicker of amusement lit his eyes. "And me a farmer, too! Sassenach, ye havena been a day late in your courses, in all the time since ye first took me to your bed. Ye havena bled now in forty-six days." "You bastard!" I said, outraged. "You counted! In the middle of a bloody war, you counted!" "Didn't you?" "No!" I hadn't; I had been much too afraid to acknowledge the possibility of the thing I had hoped and prayed for so long, come now so horribly too late. "Besides," I went on, trying still to deny the possibility, "that doesn't mean anything. Starvation could cause that; it often does." He lifted one brow, and cupped a broad hand gently beneath my breast. "Aye, you're thin enough; but scrawny as ye are, your breasts are full--and the nipples of them gone the color of Champagne grapes. You forget," he said, "I've seen ye so before. I have no doubt--and neither have you." I tried to fight down the waves of nausea--so easily attributable to fright and starvation--but I felt the small heaviness, suddenly burning in my womb. I bit my lip hard, but the sickness washed over me. Jamie let go of my hands, and stood before me, hands at his sides, stark in silhouette against the fading sky. "Claire," he said quietly. "Tomorrow I will die. This child...is all that will be left of me--ever. I ask ye, Claire--I beg you--see it safe."
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jamie-fraser
pregnancy
|
Diana Gabaldon |
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507efb0
|
"Kev," Win said calmly, stepping forward, "I would like to talk to you about something." Merripen, attentive as always to his wife, gave her a frowning glance. "Now?" "Yes, now." "Can't it wait?" "No," Win said equably. At his continued hesitation, she said, "I'm expecting." Merripen blinked. "Expecting what?" "A baby." They all watched as Merripen's face turned ashen. "But how ..." he asked dazedly, nearly staggering as he headed to Win. "How?" Leo repeated. "Merripen, don't you remember that special talk we had before your wedding night?" He grinned as Merripen gave him a warning glance. Bending to Win's ear, Leo murmured, "Well done. But what are you going to tell him when he discovers it was only a ploy?" "It's not a ploy," Win said cheerfully. Leo's smile vanished, and he clapped a hand to his forehead. "Christ," he muttered. "Where's my brandy?" And he disappeared into the house. "I'm sure he meant to say 'congratulations,' " Beatrix remarked brightly, following the group as they all went inside."
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pregnancy
|
Lisa Kleypas |
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d0e21ce
|
When you're pregnant, you can think of nothing but having your own body to yourself again, yet after having given birth you realize that the biggest part of you is now somehow external, subject to all sorts of dangers and disappearance, so you spend the rest of your life trying to figure out how to keep it close enough for comfort. That's the strange thing about being a mother: until you have a baby, you don't even realize how much you were missing one.
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motherhood
pregnancy
parents
mother
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Jodi Picoult |
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c38c404
|
Of course I can do this. I'm pregnant, not brain-damaged. My condition doesn't change my personality.
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pregnancy
|
Christine Feehan |
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3f1380c
|
We only have babies when we're young enough not to know how grim life turns out.
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reality
melena
pregnancy
child
wicked
mother
|
Gregory Maguire |
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c48acc0
|
Remember this, for it is as true as true gets: Your body is not a lemon. You are not a machine. The Creator is not a careless mechanic. Human female bodies have the same potential to give birth well as aardvarks, lions, rhinoceri, elephants, moose, and water buffalo. Even if it has not been your habit throughout your life so far, I recommend that you learn to think positively about your body.
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pregnancy
|
Ina May Gaskin |
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392d74e
|
"You have given me something ... I didn't even know I needed. It's the greatest gift I will ever receive--it's, like, completing me already in places I wasn't aware were empty. And yet ... in spite of all that? I don't love you one bit more. You are as important to me as you've always been." He curled down and pressed a kiss to the loose shirt she was wearing--it was one of his, actually, and wasn't that great. "I was wholly bonded to you before this, and will be after this--and forevermore." "You're going to make me cry again." "So cry. And let me take care of you. I got this."
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pregnancy
|
J.R. Ward |
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193234a
|
When a woman gives birth her waters break and she pours out the child and the child runs free.
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|
woman
sexing-the-cherry
jeanette-winterson
pregnancy
child
|
Jeanette Winterson |
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636b412
|
"The house swallowed them. Dylan put his hands on Kim's and Liam's shoulders. "The Goddess bless you both." He kissed Kim's forehead. "Thank you Kim." He smiled and walked away. Liam watched him, his heart full. "Is he thanking me for getting pregnant?" Kim asked. "It wasn't difficult, with all the sex we kept having. You did as much as I did." --
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pride-mates
liam-morrisey
pregnancy
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Jennifer Ashley |
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a92669c
|
They're spreading out. Look unaware and sweet and innocent. It's a little hard to look innocent when I'm as big as a house.
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pregnancy
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Christine Feehan |
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f443fbf
|
Her bun was baking, but her bloody heart was breaking.
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pregnancy
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Erin McCarthy |
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d8db4de
|
She sat in the sunshine watching the life on the street and guarding within herself, her own mystery of life.
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motherhood
pregnancy
|
Betty Smith |
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13cfd6b
|
"I'm not this unusual," she said. "It's just my hair." She looked at Bobby and she looked at me, with an expression at once disdainful and imploring. She was forty, pregnant, and in love with two men at once. I think what she could not abide was the zaniness of her life. Like many of us, she had grown up expecting romance to bestow dignity and direction. "Be brave," I told her. Bobby and I stood before her, confused and homeless and lacking a plan, beset by an aching but chaotic love that refused to focus in the conventional way. Traffic roared behind us. A truck honked its hydraulic horn, a monstrous, oceanic sound. Clare shook her head, not in denial but in exasperation. Because she could think of nothing else to do, she began walking again, more slowly, toward the row of trees."
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romance
self-doubt
love
pregnant-woman
triangle
glbtq
threesome
pregnancy
|
Michael Cunningham |
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1eaba10
|
Will I be some kid's dad one day? Are any future people lurking deep inside mine?...Which girl's carrying the other half of my kid, deep in those intricate loops? What's she doing right now? What's her name?
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love
teenage-love
young-love
pregnancy
|
David Mitchell |
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1561ff3
|
I hoped what little dinner I'd eaten wasn't something my new baby-rich body didn't like. I didn't want to throw up all over the bad guys, or then again maybe I did. It would certainly be distracting.
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pregnancy
|
Laurell K. Hamilton |
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796c23d
|
Those first few weeks are an unearthly season. From the outside you remain so ordinary, no one can tell from looking that you have experienced an earthquake of the soul. You've been torn asunder, invested with an ancient, incomprehensible magic. It's the one thing that we never quite get over: that we contain our own future.
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|
future
dreams
pregnancy
|
Barbara Kingsolver |
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71aef6d
|
Don't look at his groin. Don't look at his groin. Don't mention that he doesn't have a vagina, so 'we' is bullshit. This is not the time to mention your pet peeve about expectant fathers talking how 'we' are having a baby. Don't. Don't.
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|
humor
pet-peeves
pregnancy
|
MaryJanice Davidson |
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d943731
|
"But I cannot be worrying-worrying all the time about the I have to worry about the truth that can be And that is the difference between losing your marbles drinking the salty sea, or swallowing the stuff from the streams. My Niece-of-Shame believes in the talking cure, eh?" says Alsana, with something of a grin. "Talk, talk, talk and it will be better. Be honest, slice open your heart and spread the red stuff around. But the past is made of more than words, dearie. We married old men, you see? These bumps"--Alsana pats them both --"they will always have daddy-long-legs for fathers. One leg in the present, one in the past. No talking will change this. Their roots will always be tangled. And roots get dug up. Just look in my garden - birds at the coriander every bloody day..."
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|
sanity
future
honesty
past
truth
pregnancy
relativism
worrying
talking
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Zadie Smith |
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ae5acd7
|
"No one knows we're there, no one sees us. We never leave the room. I think about the secret voice you use when you make love. No one but that person will ever hear it. And here, we listen to each other, but we lock it in with touch, and the room vacuum seals it to stay fresh until we can breathe together again. When he breaks the silence it is to say, "I want you to know that, when you get pregnant, nothing is going to change except your dress size."
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love-making
pregnancy
|
Emma Forrest |
|
5d1b274
|
"For my sake," he said firmly, addressing the air in front of him as though it were a tribunal, "I dinna want ye to bear another child. I wouldna risk your loss, Sassenach," he said, his voice suddenly husky. "Not for a dozen bairns. I've daughters and sons, nieces and nephews, grandchildren--weans enough." He looked at me directly then, and spoke softly. "But I've no life but you, Claire." He swallowed audibly, and went on, eyes fixed on mine. "I did think, though . . . if ye do want another child . . . perhaps I could still give ye one."
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|
love
claire-fraser
jamie-fraser
babies
orphan
soulmates
pregnancy
children
|
Diana Gabaldon |
|
b33c613
|
When she was pregnant with her second child, a midwife asked if Catherine had any unspoken fears about anything that could go wrong with the baby - such as genetic defects or complications during the birth. My sister said, 'My only fear is that he might grow up to become a Republican.
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|
politics
pregnancy
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
a3c8e0b
|
Perhaps the Queen's prayers, and those of Bernard, had been efficacious, or perhaps Louise had been more attentive in bed, for during 1145--the exact date is not recorded--she bore a daughter, who was named Marie in honour of the Virgin. If the infant was not the male heir to France so desired by the King--the Salic law forbade the succession of females to the throne--her arrival encouraged the royal parents to hope for a son in the future. Relationships between aristocratic parents and children were rarely close. Queens and noblewomen did not nurse their own babies, but handed them over at birth into the care of wet nurses, leaving themselves free to become pregnant again.
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|
history
women
royalty
pregnancy
|
Alison Weir |
|
d9b4deb
|
Oh, and you accuse me of flattery! Here I waddle about like a fat old duck and you try to tell me I'm lovely.
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|
lovely
duck
pregnancy
pregnant
waddle
flattery
compliment
fat
|
Robin Hobb |
|
52d3114
|
A new collection of matter and information to present to the universe and to which it in turn will be presented; different, arguably equal parts of that great ever-repetitive, ever-changing jurisdiction of being.
|
|
ever-changing
ever-repetitive
jurisdiction-of-being
repetitive
the-universe
changing
procreation
pregnancy
|
Iain M. Banks |
|
ca4fb56
|
"Inside, the midwife was trying to get Socorro to open her mouth wide and let the pain come out. "Open your mouth," said Angelina, massaging Socorro's neck and shoulders, "and let out what you feel. Don't keep it in, querida, let it out." Socorro cried softly at first, but little by little she loosened up and she began to let out long, ear-piercing screams. "Good," said the midwife, "now breathe deeply, deeply, and then cry out again, letting all the pain go out of your body."
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|
pain
resilience
pregnancy
|
Victor Villaseñor |
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c1cedd7
|
In the past week or so, she was noticing some minor pains, small episodes of shortness of breath. Probably because she had a fairly decent-sized lifeform hanging off her spine, pummeling her lungs, playing soccer with her bladder. You know, the usual baby games.
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motherhood
pregnancy
|
Lisa Gardner |
|
12d34e5
|
Because this injunction for all women to have children isn't in any way logical. If you take a moment to consider the state of the world, the thing you notice is that there are plenty of babies being born; the planet really doesn't need all of us to produce more babies.
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|
world
pregnancy
sexism
|
Caitlin Moran |
|
984584b
|
Men never feel quite the same about a woman's body once they know it's done that thing: widened and torn to push out a baby's head.
|
|
motherhood
women
pregnancy
|
Emma Donoghue |
|
f8ede1a
|
What is it about the relationship of a mother that can heal or hurt us? Her womb is the first landscape we inhabit. It is here we learn to respond - to move, to listen, to be nourished and grow. In her body we grow to be human as our tails disappear and our gills turn to lungs. Our maternal environment is perfectly safe - dark, warm, and wet. It is a residency inside the Feminine. When we outgrow our mother's body, our cramps become her own. We move. She labors. Our body turns upside down in hers as we journey through the birth canal. She pushes in pain. We emerge, a head. She pushes one more time, and we slide out like a fish. Slapped on the back by the doctor, we breath. The umbilical cord is cut - not at our request. Separation is immediate. A mother reclaims her body, for her own life. Not ours. Minutes old, our first death is our own birth.
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|
evolution
motherhood
death
pregnancy
mother
|
Terry Tempest Williams |
|
c2a7d55
|
"Eddie turned away. "Because I saved you, as tough as those years were for you, as bad as it was with your hand, you got to grow up, too. And because you got to grow up..." When he turned back, Annie froze. Eddie was holding a baby boy, with a small blue cap on his head. "Laurence?" Annie whispered. Eddie stepped forward and placed her son in her trembling arms. Instantly, Annie was whole again, her body complete. She cradled the infant against her chest, a motherly cradle that filled her with the purest feeling. She smiled and wept and she could not stop weeping. "My baby," she gushed. "Oh, my baby, my baby..."
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|
infant-loss
motherhood
pregnancy
|
Mitch Albom |