Each negative test hurt more than the last.
Eventually, I stopped letting myself get excited whenever my period was late because disappointment had become too familiar.
Then one morning, everything changed.
I took another test without telling Ethan.
Two lines appeared.
I stared at them until my vision blurred with tears.
Ethan found me sitting on the bathroom floor.
For one frightening second, he thought something terrible had happened.
Then I silently held up the test.
His eyes widened.
“No.”
I laughed through my tears.
“Yes.”
He immediately dropped to his knees beside me.
And then he started crying too.
From that moment on, Ethan seemed happier than I had ever known him to be.
Every evening, he placed his hand against my stomach and waited patiently for the baby to move.
Sometimes he talked to her.
Sometimes he simply sat there smiling.
“You two are my whole world,” he often whispered.
I never had any reason to doubt him.
Most of the pregnancy went smoothly.
Then labor began.
Twenty-one exhausting hours later, the hospital room had become a blur of monitors, nurses, voices, and constant movement.
Suddenly, one of the machines began sounding an alert.
A nurse rushed toward my bed.
Another immediately called for the doctor.
I was still recovering from a long, exhausting delivery when my husband finally walked into the hospital room and leaned over our newborn daughter.
