'A long time before I thought about becoming a mother, I read about a boy named David Vetter. He lived until the age of 12 in a sterilised space in a hospital in Texas. He had an autoimmune disease that made contact with pathogens for him fatal. I took interest in his story out of curiosity and pathos, but with relatively easy remove. I shut it away with stories I had read of the tallest man in the world, of the moon landing.' (Introduction)