Cat

“There's no reason why you can't have another child." Laski listened numbly. He thinks that's what has been at stake, our wish for a child, any child, not this particular child who swung down the road between us. They can't know how special he was. They point to the future. But we're here, forever, now. The nurse slipped Diane onto the wheeled table. "I have a needle for you," said the nurse. "No," said Diane, still refusing any anesthetic. "It's to dry up your milk," said the nurse.”
― William Kotzwinkle, Swimmer in the Secret Sea

“I don't think that my wife was disappointed by my son. I don't think that she blamed herself, or blamed me. Her understanding of things was richer than that. But I do know that she sometimes wished we could have done more. There were things she had hoped to do, and now it is clear, now that she is dead; we simply did not do those things and won't. I suppose this is true of children in general, of any children, but it seems especially true of a child who must be cared for permanently. I never apologized to her for him, and she likewise never said anything to me about it. If such a feeling of unhappiness existed, it would only have been in the abstract, for the particulars were: we felt lucky to have had him, and lucky to become the ones who were continually with him, caring for him. I have read some books of philosophy in which the freedom of burdens is explained, that somehow we are all seeking some appropriate burden. Until we find it, we are horribly shackled, can in fact scarcely live.”
― Jesse Ball, Census

“What if, instead of worrying about scaring pregnant women, people told them the truth? What is pregnant women were treated like thinking adults? What if everyone worried less about giving women a bad impression of motherhood?”
― Meaghan O'Connell, And Now We Have Everything: On Motherhood Before I Was Ready

“With stuff this big, almost any way of looking at it can be true. We all talked like we were going to eventually reach some grand conclusion, some correct stance, but in fact it was different for everybody, impossible to pin down. Was childbirth traumatic or transcendent? Was pregnancy a time of wonder and awe or a kind of temporary disability? Were we supposed to fit our lives around our children or fit our children into our lives? My feelings changed every minute, depending on my mood and on the company I kept. It felt essential, though, to keep asking the question.”
― Meaghan O'Connell, And Now We Have Everything: On Motherhood Before I Was Ready