Alev Scott is the author of Turkish Awakening: Behind the Scenes of Modern Turkey and Ottoman Odyssey: Travels though a Lost Empire. Cash Cow: How the Maternal Body Became a Global Commodity will be published in February 2026.
I am 22 weeks pregnant. During this pregnancy – my fourth; I have two children already and had a miscarriage in February – I have become unduly superstitious, increasingly preoccupied by the idea of life emerging in the shadow of death, and half-remembering folklore taught to me by my Turkish grandmother.
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