To You, The Child I Don’t Have But Want (Sort Of)

I don’t why it happened. Maybe I am just a bit too raw, too emotional. Maybe it is the picture my daughter’s daycare just sent me of her smiling and tracing letters — a number two pencil in one of her little hands and a lined, teaching sheet under the other. Or maybe it is because after two years of diapers and bottle boiling and sleepless nights I am starting to feel like myself again. Maybe it is because after two years of songs, Lego forts, and bedtime stories I am starting to see my daughter shift from a baby into a little girl. Maybe it is because she doesn’t need me anymore, or at least not as much, but today I cried for you.

I cried for the child I do not have. I cried for the sibling and playmate my daughter doesn’t have, and maybe never will. And I cried because I still don’t know. Of all the decisions I’ve made in my life, this is the one I still don’t know. This is the one I cannot make: to have you, or not to have you.

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