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Byline: John Burnham Schwartz
I have a good friend, a lovely and unfailingly optimistic woman some 30 years older than I am, who over lunch a couple of years ago quietly announced that she'd had seven pregnancies and two beautiful children. Her faint smile let me know that she wasn't complaining about her history-on the contrary, she considered herself blessed-while the flicker of sorrow in her eyes attested to the fact that she would never forget the pain. I have no memory of my inadequate response, though I remember being shocked. The numbers seven and two seemed to speak for themselves, the stark difference between them-that unspoken five-like a ledger of ...