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Gaia’s Custodians

Chapter 1

The beginning of life

April 21, 1990. It's my due date. The doctors calculated that I should see the light of the world today. My grandma works as a nurse at the hospital where my mom will give birth to me. And today is her birthday. All the conditions appear to be aligned perfectly.

With one exception: me. Somehow I wasn’t really fond of the plans the doctors made for me. Due date was just another ordinary day for me to enjoy my warm and cozy home inside my mom’s belly. The days passed, and I didn’t give any signs of ambition to change my habitat. After a week, everybody got nervous. “Let’s wait another one or two days, but not more...", they said. After ten days, it was enough. On May 1, 1990, at 9:50 pm, I was taken out of my beloved residence. And not in a gentle way. Although my mom was still feeling calm, the doctors and nurses pressured her into agreeing to a c-section. She hesitantly said “yes”. “For the safety of your son,” they told her.

The anesthetics kicked in, the head doctor made an incision, my dad fainted, and shortly afterward, I was born. The nurses cleaned me up, weighed me, and performed a host of routine checks to see if everything was okay. Then my dad came to consciousness, and they handed me over to him. After a while, the effects of the anesthetics wore off, and my mom also regained awareness. It was a routine procedure for the doctors and nurses, and everything proceeded according to plan. Their task was completed.

But there was one problem. Nothing went according to plan - according to nature’s plan. When the nurses put me on my mom’s breast, she didn't feel anything. No connection to this little being. Just a deep sense of sadness. What was wrong with her? Nothing. Her body did a marvelous job. The only natural reason why there isn’t a warm, breathing little being in her arms directly after it left her body is that it is dead. And her body reacts perfectly to this catastrophe: no motherly feelings and the immediate beginning of the grieving process. Not even the sense of a newborn on her skin can convince her body otherwise. Nature didn’t plan for c-sections.