One December morning in 1967, in the early hours before a dull winter sunrise, I labored alone on the fourth floor of Immanuel Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska. I had expected labor to be work, more or less like it sounded: teeth-gritting effort, sweating, and grunting. Instead furious stallions stampeded across my eighteen-year-old belly, and no amount of shameless screaming in the direction of the fluorescent-lit hallway could quiet them. In the respites between contractions I looked out a window at the shadowy shapes of downtown-Omaha office buildings. Then, when my torture resumed, I turned my head back toward the slit of white light from the corridor and screamed for drugs.