The number of "this was the happiest moment of my life!" childbirth stories out there have always astonished me. Are these women kidding? It hurt like hell for hours, was humiliating, and all I really wanted to do was eviscerate everyone involved, starting with her father and saving the grand finale for that pompous twit of a doctor.

And then she came out the colour of an undercooked daffodil.

They didn't actually notice my jaundice at first; I had to go back to the hospital a few days later.

Jesse, I'll bet you were as cute as hell, even orange.

Jo looked - strange. She had very long dense coal-black curls, and these winged-eyebrows, and, well, the skin tone, NSM.

Thanks, but I swear, newborns are almost never cute.

Most of you have seen me, or at least a picture (for those who haven't I'm blonde, blue-eyed and fair tending toward PINK).

When I was born (also 3 weeks early, also put in the incubator to finish baking), I had: (1) a full head of BLACK hair, (2) eyes so dark that they were almost black, and (3) olive skin that was probably a touch of jaundice.

I would think that Mom took the wrong kid home, except the physical similarities between me and both parents are too strong.

And I would think that the hospital just took a picture of the wrong baby, but Mom remembers the doctor handing me to her, because Mom's first impression was that I looked like a coconut. (I was a para-breech birth, so the birth canal didn't smoosh my head, so I had a perfectly round head full of black hair. And yes, I came out ass-first.)

Jake, my first baby, was jaundiced. I was 24 and clueless, and he looked perfect because it was a C-section, so no lumps or angry red marks or pointy head. I said to the nurse, "He's so beautiful -- all golden! Like a little surfer baby!" And she looked at me like I had two heads and said, "Honey, that's jaundice."

The little black S&M masks they have to wear under the lights are so weird.

Tep, you've seen Joanna. Her hair is reddish chestnut, and it's perfectly straight. She kept the grey-green eyes and the winged brows, and she's still olive skinned.

She came out with raven curls to her shoulders. If she hadn't been that bizarre colour, she'd have been gorgeous.

With the colour? Weird.

Her skin betrays her anew every morning. She touches her cheek with tentative, hopeful fingers, and raises her eyes to the mirror.

No, still the same. The days outside don't make the difference, instead reddening streaks into her hair, bleaching the down on her arms.

She wants to look like her parents, not a throwback to raping owners. She wants to look like her heroes, like the ancestors that would claim her, like the dusty children in bright strange prints that people her books.

Chocolate, mahogany, oiled ebony glinting in the sun.

No, still the same.

Redbone, blue veined, high yellow.

She came out with raven curls to her shoulders. If she hadn't been that bizarre colour, she'd have been gorgeous.

I don't doubt it.

I was a freaky little round-headed baby, and I didn't cry when I came out, which made Mom think I was stillborn.

I am in all ways totally different from newborn!me. Blonde, blue-eyed, china-doll complexion, and rather too chatty for my own good. Heh.