It was surprisingly easy. If denial were an Olympic sport, I would’ve been draped in gold.
I went to work, wrote prescriptions, smiled at patients, and pretended there wasn’t a tiny, rapidly dividing human growing inside me. Other than the ten different urine-stained sticks hiding in my bathroom trash can like crime scene clues, and the small—but undeniably present—bump I’d written off as a side effect of post-Khalifa binge eating, there was no evidence, no proof. Not yet.
I hadn’t gone to a doctor, hadn’t done an ultrasound. I could have—hell, I was surrounded by them—but I couldn’t bring myself to make it real, to see it, hear it, name it.
Sarah’s words kept ringing in my ears, on loop like a song I didn’t like but couldn’t turn off:being a bad mom isn’t genetic.
But what if it was?
Why hadn’t I known earlier,feltsomething earlier? Wasn’t there supposed to be some instinct sparking to life inside me the second Khalifa’s DNA started its overly ambitious project in my uterus? Some flicker of connection, of joy, ofanything?
Instead, there was just...blank space.
Shouldn’t I be happy? Sad? Excited? Petrified? Decorating nurseries? Buying baby clothes? Screaming,I’m pregnant!from rooftops like a woman in a commercial for domestic bliss? Shouldn’t I be calling Khalifa, telling him we’dcreated something permanent, something binding, something terrifyingly alive?
But I couldn’t. Because it didn’t feel real.
There was a part of me—an awful, broken part—that believed something inside me was missing. That whatever switch turned women into mothers had skipped me entirely. That my mom’s lifelong coldness had been genetic after all, freezing every seed of maternal tenderness before it had a chance to bloom.
I spent years studying to be an OB. I knew everything there was to know about pregnancy—hormones, trimesters, fetal development, even the best kind of prenatal vitamins depending on iron absorption rates. I could recite the stages of labor like the alphabet. I’d coached anxious mothers through contractions, held their hands when monitors spiked, delivered crying bundles into trembling arms.
But this—this was different.
The physical part I understood; it was textbook.
The emotional part felt like trying to read a language I’d never learned.
How was I supposed to nurture something I couldn’t even feel? To mother a heartbeat I hadn’t yet heard? I knew what to do with data, with symptoms, with measurable outcomes—but feelings weren’t quantifiable. There was no chart, no test result, no checklist forthis.
And maybe that was what scared me most. That, for all my education and control, I might never ace this one subject.
I looked at myself in the mirror one morning, at the faint curve of my stomach, and felt...nothing. No excitement, no dread, just this gnawing guilt. Because if this was supposed to be a miracle, then why did it feel like a mistake?
MY PHONE BUZZED AGAINSTmy hip. I glanced down at the screen and frowned—it wasn’t one of my patients, just a text from the front desk:Room 204. Urgent.
When I walked in, I froze. Sarah was there. So was Dr. Harper. And the hospital bed—myhospital bed—was empty.
“Oh, hell no,” I said, pivoting on my heel. “Absolutely not.”
Before I could make a run for it, Sarah’s hand shot out, catching my arm with frightening precision. “Get your ass in here, Lillian, or I’ll start using violence.”
I gaped at her. “You’d really hurt a pregnant woman?”
“If she keeps being an idiot, then yes.”
And just like that, I was manhandled onto the bed I’d delivered dozens of babies from, never once imagining I’d end up horizontal on it myself. Sarah yanked up my shirt with all the grace of an over-caffeinated toddler.
“Um, hello? Boundaries much?” I said, swatting at her hand. “This is assault.”
Dr. Harper, ever the professional, was trying and failing not to laugh as she snapped on her gloves and picked up a bottle of ultrasound gel.
Sarah crossed her arms. “I know you’re scared, but you have to stop pretending.”
“I’m not—” I started, but my throat betrayed me, my voice catching somewhere between denial and confession.
Her face softened as she reached for my hand. “Hey, it’s okay. Everything is going to be okay.”
I didn’t believe her. But I didn’t pull away either.
