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I thought about the years it took to get her.
I remembered every tear shed in parking lots, clinic bathrooms, and the dark side of our bed while Daniel pretended to sleep because he didn’t know how to help.
I thought about all the times motherhood felt like a door that opened for everyone but me.
Then I looked at Sophia—warm and slippery in my hands, alive and stubborn and ours.
“We’re here now,” I said.
Daniel met my eyes in the mirror.
And for the first time since I saw that incision, the fear inside me shifted into something else.
Because they had treated me like an afterthought. Like a technicality. Like motherhood was something I would receive after the important decisions had already been made.
They were wrong.
I lifted Sophia from the water and wrapped her in a towel, tucking it under her chin. She made a soft, offended sound, and Daniel laughed despite himself. It was shaky, but real.
I pressed my lips to the top of her damp head.
No one would ever decide again whether I counted.
I already did.