I read a book on birth day signs when I was pregnant and they had decided to induce there at the end. So I knew the date they had planned. I read the day and thought that I would have a hard time rearing the person they described for it. Kind of a prickly sensitive type and I didn't want that.

I read the sign for two days from then, just to see what a difference a day made and all that, and I really liked the person they described for August 30, two days past the day it was, my actual birthday. My day sign had me pegged, so did my husband's and sister and MIL, so I was feeling the voodoo.

I spontaneiously went into labor the next day and they had to do an emergency c-section (I was 4 cm and determined to deliver apparently, with no conscious control of any of this  -  no, you can't just cross your legs. when your nether jaws decide to swing wide, you just grit your teeth and hang on for the ride!)

He was born at 10:05 pm August 30, 2004 in Greenville NC. He is destined for greatness, according to the chart.

I was basicly a misogynist because of my mother. And that is ok, I had good reason. But as I matured and learned about making big mistakes and having to keep on living with yourself and others, I learned that I was a judgmental asshole as well as a misogynist.

So I switched teams and now I am a general misanthrope. I think most people are about as bad as any other people and given the opportunity, will disappoint. But I am an inherent optimist, so I never think about this and am constantly expecting better of people. Thus the constant disappointment. I find that the less I know about people, the more I like them. It is like the myth of Sysiphos. I am constantly rolling my people expectations uphill and they are constantly trying to crush me on the way down.

So what did I learn. Having fought through all of this while my mother was living and twelve years past her death,  I find myself pregnant. And I learn about the true nature of -gyny. I learn with 16 hours of my body telling me what it was going to do with no consultation from my brain. I tell it to wait, to stop, that his lungs are not ready. Please no NICU. And my body continues to labor. All my womanly, genetically different parts deciding how it is going to be, brain and doctors be damned.

And my female doctor decided to go for the Cesarean for my one month premature baby. When he is birthed, but not "of woman born", he is ten pounds and has lungs like a tenor. His cry echoed in the room. My body knew he was ready. It decided to birth him. And I think I might have even survived it without intervention. But there was a greater than 50% chance based on my numbers that day that I would not.  My body decided that he would survive the day, regardless of my fate.

I learned to respect biology and difference that day. I learned what my mother did five times natural. And I learned that I had judged her too harshly, as I was the last of five and she did not need or have to have me. I learned to respect women by learning about how I got here through experience, not stories about it.

And yes, it is a knowlege that women who do not bear children will never truly know. No men will never know it. And that is how we are different.

There are things about being men that I cannot know. I have asked my husband about these things. He has told me. And knowing what I thought I knew about giving birth and then knowing what I didn't from actually doing it, I know that I can never understand men's capacity for suffering or courage or anger. They are different.

What I have learned is to respect the differences between us and to hate neither of us.

But I still think that most people are bad, craven, and venal. It is our struggle as individuals to overcome our animalistic nature. We shine sometimes, but only for a glimmering instant, and then the struggle continues. But I think we all live for those glimmering moments.

Wallowing in hate is not a glimmering moment. We should all just stop it.