choosingraw.com

I’m not sure how many of you saw Andrew Solomon’s article about depression and pregnancy this week in the New York Times Magazine, but I wanted to be sure to mention it. But what struck me is Solomon’s effort to describe the emotional complexity of pregnancy, to challenge the idea that pregnancy is or should be greeted as a euphoric time in the life of every woman. Depression and anxiety surrounding pregnancy (or heightened as a result of pregnancy) is one of them, and I’m glad that Solomon has raised the issue. For every Martha—the last surviving passenger pigeon, which died in a cage at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914—there are thousands of other species that vanish anonymously, far from human view, their extinction only noted by human beings belatedly, species like the Liverpool pigeon, the Alaotra grebe, the Mexican grizzly bear, the Texas wolf, and many others that we did not even identify until they were gone for good.