A Wonderful, Amazing, Stupendous, Inspiring, Butt-Kicking Real-Life Story

      When my mom, Sally, went into labor with my brother, she thought she was prepared for anything. She'd had a standard, not-horribly-long first labor with my sister, and a dramatic, barely-made-it-to-the-hospital-and-out-ofthe- elevator-before-nearly-giving-birth-in-the-hallway labor with me. Whatever baby number three had planned for her, she knew she could handle it.

      She wasn't ready, however, to hear growing panic in the doctors' voices, or to have my dad whisked from the room with no explanation. She hadn't expected to deliver a son who'd need life-saving surgery the second day of his life. Nor had she expected the doctors to advise her against the procedure. “He'll ruin your lives. He'll ruin your daughters' lives. You can still have more children. You should let him die,” they said. My mom, barely able to resist her urge to slap the doctor across the face (especially impressive considering all the postpregnancy hormones zooming through her body), said, “This is my child. He's living and breathing right now. I'm going to do whatever I can to give him the best life possible.” For the past twenty-nine years, my mom has done exactly that. It's what women do, no matter what situation we're faced with.

      If Women Ran the World . . . Women would always trust and value their own opinions, not just when other people are obviously wrong, inconsiderate, and stupid.