From Without A Map by Meredith Hall:
“The body does not tolerate foreign cells, which trigger illness and rejection. But a mother’s body incorporates into her own the cells of her children as if they recognize each other, belong to each other. This fantastic melding of two selves, mother and child, is called human microchimerism…
Less incredibly, perhaps, the mother’s cells are also carried in the child. During gestation, maternal cells slip through the barriers of defense and join her child’s cells as they pulse through his veins. My children carry me in their own bodies, mother and child joined forever, both beings bumping against each other every day.
Of course, the implications are stunning. Mother and child do not fully separate at birth. We do not lose each other at that moment of severance. Every day we spend preparing our young children to live apart from us, independently, we do not have to feel the sharp pain of separation… We belong to each other, cohesive and mysterious. We are joined in an us, past, present, and future.”
