The Power Within Me
Before you continue reading, I just want to add a couple of quick notes. Firstly, this was my debut flash fiction on the WritersHQ forum (with a different title). Secondly, this is purely fiction and that I am not pregnant (at the time of writing). So please don’t take anything from this Mother!
When a baby girl is born, she holds all the eggs she'll ever need in her lifetime.
Interesting, huh? There's more to it though. Let's go a bit deeper.
This therefore means that when your grandmother was carrying half of your genetic material whilst she was pregnant with your mother.
Of course, women have to go through puberty and be in the follicular phase of their menstrual cycle before those eggs are ready to be fertilised. But that's not the point I'm trying to make.
My point is that all pregnant women are currently carrying half the genetic material for their own grandchildren. And a quarter of the genetic material for their great-grandchildren.
Isn't that fascinating?
Isn't that empowering?
How many women do you know who are currently pregnant, have this life growing inside of them? And how many of these women do you think are aware that they are also carrying part of a human who will be well into their fourth decade at the next turn of the century.
Probably not many.
Think back to when your grandmother was your age. What’s the year? 1950? 1960? 1970? Has the Cuban Missile Crisis happened? Has Nelson Mendela been sentenced to prison? Has man walked on the moon?
How different is your world from that of your grandmother?
Now think the same amount of years in the future. What year will it be? 2070? 2080? 2090? What will your grandchild’s world look like? If the human race continues growing at the same rate it’ll look very different, that’s for sure. Will they watch in horror as water sweeps uncontrollably through the country they call home? Will they have to flee as wildfires engulf their home? Will they succumb to the pandemic that arises from the permafrost?
How different will your grandchildren's world be to yours?
I look down at my stomach, where my unborn daughter is growing inside of me, and I ask myself these questions. I'm not sure I like all the answers. Their child, my grandchild, has to live in this world. The grandchild who will emerge from the eggs that I am currently carrying. They can’t stop the sea, the wildfires, the pathogens, the future that I can’t even begin to imagine. By then, it will be too late.
But I can.
