NATASHA POINT OF VIEW.

The pain was unimaginable, as if someone had lit a fire in my abdomen and it had spread downwards towards the middle of my legs; I felt betrayed by my own body as I forced myself to push out the baby I had housed for nine months. But when he finally came out, and I heard his first cry, shrill and loud, I forgot everything I had felt in the moments before — the pain, the anguish, the clenching of teeth.

"Hand me my child," I said to the attending nurses.

"Hold on, ...