To sum up, I am convinced that unless there is any indication of a disease or abnormal appetite in any respect, that the natural wishes and desires of the mother-to-be who is bearing a child should be the absolute law to herself and her husband, for during these months she is on a different plane of existence from the usual one. She is swayed by impulses which science is as yet incapable of analysing or comprehending, and experience has again and again proved that she is wise to satisfy any reasonable desire, whether for the spiritual, bodily or mental contributions to her growing child’s requirements or those which would strengthen her own power of supporting that child. Fortunate indeed is the husband of the best, well-balanced and developed mother-to-be, who with intense emotion shares with him in the closest and most exquisite intimacy, the creating of a life which has every prospect of adding beauty and strength to the world. CHAPTER XIII The Procession of the Months “The mother is the child’s supreme parent.” HAVELOCK ELLIS. At first invisible, with no outer changes to indicate the vital internal processes, from the moment of conception an intense activity has begun within the mother. Sometimes women are aware of the actual moment of conception, and faintly perceive for the first two or three days sensations too delicate to be called pain and yet intense and penetrating as though of the lightest touch upon the inward and most sensitive consciousness. I have read reports of women, and know one personally, who felt the process of conception, although this will probably be generally received with incredulity. The majority of people are less completely cognisant of the voices of their own organism, and perhaps for two or three months are almost unaware that anything different from the usual course of their life is taking place. If, as seems to me unquestionably the best and happiest relation, the man and woman who are creating a child are doing so deliberately, consciously and with acute interest, a mutual knowledge of the principal stages through which their child passes should add greatly to their interest and the intensity of their feeling. From the first moment of its conception, indeed often for months before this has been possible, their child is to the loving pair a living entity of whom they may speak.