Cherrie Moraga, the celebrated Chicana lesbian writer, has crafted a jewel of a book in Waiting In The Wings: Portrait of a Queer Motherhood. This is the story of one small human being`s struggle for survival , the author`s two-and-one-half pound premature baby boy. While the specifics belong to Moraga and her loved ones -- her large close-knit biological clan; her long-term partner; the child`s father -- the tale is told in common with every woman who has experienced the wonder and terror of pregnancy, the trauma of a child`s near-death. What is uncommon is that the mother is a lesbian, a writer, a Chicana -- all in the same breath of her storytelling. Lesbians don`t make babies with our lovers , she writes. Our blood doesn`t mix . What does mix in Waiting In The Wings are blood and queer relations, Mexican Catholicism and Indian ceremony, butch and femme, life and death -- creating the carne y huesos not only of a baby, but of a family. Familia the author holds to in the grip of labor, sister in one hand, lover in the other. Family whose history she sees written in the dried parchment that is a dying uncle`s skin. I am trying to write about the impossible. The ordinary beginning and ending of a life , Cherrie Moraga tells us. So ordinary, in fact, that perhaps Waiting In The Wings is not that queer after all.