“My wife can’t have children anymore. She brought this on herself. Do you really want your mother to watch you die without an heir?”
My mother-in-law exploded when she heard my husband still didn’t want a divorce.
“Mom! Even if that’s how you feel, you can’t force us like this!” My husband knew the moment she brought that woman over, our marriage probably wouldn’t survive it.
“Force you? Fine, I *am* forcing you!” She stopped paying attention to my husband and turned all her anger on me. “If you still have a conscience, you’ll divorce my Liam Sterling right now! Don’t you dare turn him into a man with no descendants!”
I let out a bitter laugh. As if not being able to have children was something I’d chosen.
Right after we graduated, we’d decided to work for four years before having kids. No rush.
The first two years went exactly as we’d planned. Our jobs were getting more stable, our lives slowly settling down.
But in the following two years, the conflict with my mother-in-law began.
She nagged me constantly to have a baby. To shut her up, my husband and I helped pay for a new house back in his hometown, along with his older brother and sister-in-law. We hoped keeping her busy would stop her from meddling in our lives.
Her old house was near the river and really inconvenient, so we decided to build the new one by the main road instead.
Sure enough, once the new house construction started, she was busy running around all day. She didn’t even have time to bring up grandchildren when we went back for New Year.
Although we’d paid for the new house, we rarely stayed there, since both of us worked out of town.
Four years passed in a blur. Our jobs were stable by then, but we hadn’t managed to save much. Part of our money had gone toward paying back the bride price, and the rest toward that house.
On top of that, I was prone to exhaustion and pretty frail. My husband was always buying me tonics and supplements.
We didn’t have much money, but we still decided it was time to try for a baby.
My mother-in-law said as long as the two of us had a child, she would help raise it; we wouldn’t have to worry.
I’d never really liked children, but I didn’t want to put my husband in a difficult spot, so I started preparing for pregnancy anyway.
Our relationship had always been good, and it didn’t take long for me to conceive our first child.
Pregnancy, however, wasn’t at all what I’d imagined. From the second month on, I was constantly nauseous, vomiting day and night.
The morning sickness was so bad I couldn’t work. My husband told me to quit my job and rest at home.
Lying there retching into a trash can, I started regretting getting pregnant. I hadn’t expected it to affect my life—my work—this much.
But it was too late to take it back. I resigned and spent my days in our rented apartment, mostly in bed.
When my mother heard how severe my morning sickness was, she rushed over by bus to take care of me.
During my pregnancy, I often lost my temper with my husband for no reason, but he never raised his voice at me. He always soothed me gently, like nothing I said could hurt him.
Watching him, my mother told me I’d chosen the right man.
I thought things would continue like that—hard, but manageable. But life rarely follows our script.
One day, my mother and I went to the hospital for a routine check-up. I was five months along.
We watched the baby move on the ultrasound screen, tiny limbs twitching inside my belly, and both of us were smiling.
Then the doctor said one sentence that sent us straight into hell.
“There’s a problem with the baby’s head.” The doctor pointed to the fetus’s partially formed skull, where something clearly seemed to be missing. “Even if the child is born alive, there’s a high chance it won’t be healthy.”
“Doctor, is there any way to treat it?” My mother squeezed my shaking hand to comfort me, then looked up and asked.
“At the moment, no.” The doctor sighed, his expression full of pity. “If you decide not to have this baby, you should terminate the pregnancy as soon as possible. The older the fetus, the more difficult and dangerous the procedure.”
“Ah…” His words hit me like another hammer blow.
“You’re still young…” he began, trying to comfort me when he saw I was breaking down.
But my mother was afraid I’d hear something that would hurt even more. She grabbed our things and hurried me out of the examination room.
Back at home, I went straight to bed and lay there staring at the ceiling.
I placed a hand on my belly. I’d never been a fan of children, but I had started to look forward to this one, to meeting this little life that was half me, half my husband.
When my husband came home, my mother told him everything.
He fell silent when she finished. The room felt painfully still.
“What do you want to do?” he finally asked.
“Abort it.” My voice was steady. I didn’t want to bring a sick child into the world, only to watch it suffer.
“Okay.” He said just that one word, then lay down beside me without another sound.
I knew he’d been looking forward to this baby. Ever since she found out I was pregnant, my mother-in-law had called constantly to ask about the child. With this baby as a buffer, she’d stopped cursing me, stopped making things difficult.
And then, with my husband and my mother at my side, I walked into the operating room.
