“When the two pink stripes confirmed I was with child, I felt a visceral connection to that exact moment, when it shook the lives of women everywhere and through all time. The pause rippled through my whole being like it crashed into the lives of millions, who ready or not stopped to vomit in a dirt track, or gag at the smell of food, who suddenly stopped their digging weaving daydreaming to count the days since last blood, who were alone or with family when suddenly everything changed, in a warzone a convent or a caravan crossing the desert.