Disregard the psychopaths and the narcissists for this experiment. The biologically broken outliers. Why are there negligent mothers in the remaining numbers? The weak, the addicts, the whores? Why is loving another with earthshattering maternal abandon not enough to make a woman super-human? Whipping and slashing anew at whatever demons wait outside the hospital doors?
When all that matters is the heart in the effort.
Nothing is elemental, and everything is, in that white-hot chasm that opens to sweep in a new soul. Nerves are exposed. Does cool breath on a wound hurt, or help? Is the water cold, or hot? Shall we seek air and light or will we, my baby and me, heal 40 percent faster covered? Currents of emotion touch parts of brain untouched before. Labor is Annihilation of Self in Surround Sound.
Did she have a self?
She will never be more vulnerable than in childbirth. She will never be more pinned. The lucky arise with a life more beloved than their own in their arms. The unlucky have demons in the room.