Jennifer Case is the author of We Are Animals: On the Nature and Politics of Motherhood (Trinity University Press, 2024) and Sawbill: A Search for Place (University of New Mexico Press, 2018). Her essays have appeared in The Rumpus, Orion, Motherly, and Literary Mama, among others. You can find her at www.jenniferlcase.com.
“The pregnancy continued not so much because I chose it … I sobbed, until I could sob no more, and a quiet defiance and resolution settled around me, holding it all.”