For some reason, deciding to have a baby, being pregnant, and now facing birth happening anytime between now and the end of August keeps making me think of the fragility of life and how close we are to death at any moment. At first this seemed paradoxical to me; why would birth make me think of death? However, they are connected in many ways. Imagining myself going through the phases of parenthood makes it easier to imagine myself aging. I obviously would have aged even without having a child, yet I'm familiar with the rites of passage of childhood and how old parents typically are when their child graduates from high school, for example. The predictability of children's lives up until they are 18 or maybe even through college makes it easier to imagine the passage of time. It is strange to imagine myself being at their high school graduation with grey hair! Also, the process of giving birth involves so much of the fluids of life - blood, tears, sweat - which also empha