I typed back immediately:No.
Amai:How are you feeling?
Anxious. Exhausted. Hopeful. Terrified.
I typed:Okay.
Amai:Blood test is in two days.
I know.
Amai:You ready?
I stared at the question.
Was I ready?
Ready to find out if this worked?
Ready to find out if I was carrying his child?
Ready to find out if the last two weeks of waiting and hoping and obsessing had been for something or for nothing?
I typed:I don’t know.
The three dots appeared.
Stayed there for a long time.
Then:Me neither.
And just like that, the distance between us collapsed.
Because he wasn’t just the man paying me to carry his child.
He was the man waiting with me.
Hoping with me.
Terrified with me.
And I didn’t know what to do with that.
Didn’t know how to name it.
Didn’t know how to protect myself from it.
I just knew that whatever this was—whatever we were becoming—it was already too late to stop it.
The contract had been signed.
The embryo had been transferred.
And somewhere in the space between professional and personal, we’d crossed a line neither of us could uncross.
I set my phone down.
Pressed my hand against my abdomen.
