ISS:My Diary (an unborn child)

   October 2: Today my life began. My parents do not know it yet. I am
as small as the pollen of a flower, but it is I already. I will be a
girl. I will have blonde hair and blue eyes. Nearly everything is
settled already, even that I shall love birds.

   October 19: I have grown a little, but I am still too small to do
anything by myself. My mother does everything for me, although she
still does not know that she is carrying me under her heart. But I am a
real person just as a crumb of bread is still real bread. My mother
exists, and I do too.

   October 23: My mouth is just now beginning to open. Just think, in a
year or so I'll be laughing, and later I'll start to talk. My first
word will be "mama."

   October 25: Today my heart began to beat. It will beat softly for
the rest of my life, never stopping. After many years it will tire and
stop. Then I shall die.

   November 2: I am growing continually. My arms and legs are taking
shape, but I must wait a long time before these tiny legs will raise me
to my mother's arms; before these little arms will be able to conquer
the earth and befriend people.

   November 12: Tiny fingers are beginning to form on my hands. How
small they are. One day I'll stroke my mother's hair and tell her how
nice she is.

   November 20: Only today the doctor told my mother that I'm living
here under her heart. How happy she must be! Are you happy, mother?

   November 25: My mother and father are probably thinking about a name
for me. And they don't even know that I am a little girl, so they are
probably calling me "Andy." But I want to be called Barbara. I am
growing so big.

   December 10: My hair is growing. It is as bright and shiny as the
sun. I wonder what kind of hair my mother has.

   December 13: My eyes are almost fully developed, although the lids
are still shut. When mother brings me into the world it will be full of
sunshine and overflowing with flowers. I have never seen a flower, you
know, but more than anything I want to see my mother. How do you look,
mother?

   December 24: My fingers and toes are fully formed. Even my nails are
beginning to develop.

   December 26: I wonder if my mother hears the delicate beat of my
heart? Some children are born with sickly hearts, and then the gentle
fingers of the doctor perform miracles to make them healthy. But my
heart is healthy. It beats so evenly: tup-tup, tup-tup. You shall have
a healthy daughter, mother.

   December 28: Today my mother killed me.

   God says, "Lo children are an heritage of the Lord; and the fruit of
the womb is his reward." (Psalm 127:3) The Psalmist wrote, "I will
praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are thy
works, and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid
from thee when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest
parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being
unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in
continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. "(Psalm
139: 14-16) Isaiah said, "That Lord hath called me from the womb; from
the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name ... And, now,
saith the Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant ..."
(Isaiah 49: 1,5) God said about Jeremiah, "Before I formed thee in the
belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I
sanctified thee." (Jeremiah 1:5) God says, "Be sure your sin will find
you out." (Numbers 32:23)