Novel Excerpt: “ A world he did not yet know he knew”

Sleeping while pregnant is hard. Some would say impossible, even, at the end. For most mothers it’s the incontinence, the back pain, the unyielding pressure of a redistributed anatomy. Me? I had all that, yes, but my side effects were laced with something...else. Other. Otherworldly, you might say. Our son, the seed we had planted on a quiet autumn night when the first chill of winter blew in on the left while the cottontails burrowed into the brush on the right, under a full moon into supple soil we dug into the earth to build a cocoon for him, and placed our anatomical seeds along with every hope and dream we’ve ever held for ourselves and the world. We washed our naked bodies over his plot as we sealed the hole that would hold our son, and on that night we made love for the last time, moon on our backs and dirt in our fingernails, so that I may carry the last of him, my Sam, in my belly for thirty seven weeks and wondering every day if his father would live to see his heir crawl out of my body, eyes open, lungs wailing, and arms outstretched to a world he did not yet know he knew. 

This Currently the opening piece for my book. I don’t expect it to stay in this form or in this placement, but every time I need to step away from my writing practice, it’s the first thing i need to read to dive back in. These characters are so blurry still, but I love how even I can get excited about the Possibilities that lie in future pages every time I read this.