I Would Like to Make a Cartoon Series Called Take Two —or—the Talking Baby Gets Adopted

It would start like this:

When I was born, I told the doctor it was important he put me on my mother’s chest. We can’t do that, he said. We can’t let her see you. She might get attached.

I grabbed hold of the umbilical cord he hadn’t cut yet. Buddy, I said. She can’t get much more attached to me. Just do it.

He wasn’t used to the newborns bossing him around, so he cut the cord and put me on her body. He had no idea what to say, so for the first time in his life, he said nothing.

Hi, I said. I need you to hold me until my nervous system calms down, I told my mother. Because I already knew she would be disappearing soon, I did not feel panicked or even all that sad. I knew good things were coming my way. I need to get this feeling into my brain. I need you to say you love me. I need you to look me in the eyes when you say goodbye.

My mother was 21 years old and a good girl. She did as I said. My brain remembered her face looking at me, her green eyes—Stay in your body, they said to me. You are safe. This is your life. Even when you don’t see me, I’m part of who you are. Everything’s going to be okay.

I felt like I was part of a team. The doctor, my mother, the energy between my mother’s body and my body—I was in a river, and all I had to do was relax and float, and it would take me where I was supposed to go.

I wasn’t being relinquished. I was in the flow. This was not about loss. It was about life.

But I have already lied to you. I said I was not sad so you would not feel bad for me. Of course I was sad. Of course my heart broke. I mean, how could it not?

But I knew I was on a journey, and part of being on a journey is finding courage where I did not know it existed—in my heart, where the spark that brought me to life burns clean and bright, fueling me on in ways that may seem impossible or unthinkable.

When the nurse took me to the nursery, I told her I needed to be held 24/7. I told her to call in all the volunteers necessary to keep a heartbeat in my ears. I was just born, I told her. Without that sound, I said, I’ll have to leave my body looking for it and then it will be very hard for me to ever find my way back.

Newborns don’t tell me what to do, she said. Why are you so bossy?

Because I know things you don’t, I said, and I like to share.

And it would just keep on going until, well, who knows. I think this baby has a lot to say, and a lot of growing do and narrate.