Yet, here I was. I swung my legs off the bed and padded softly to the bathroom, the cool tiles waking me fully. As I picked up the small plastic stick, my heart raced. Two bright pink lines. I blinked and blinked again, convinced my eyes were deceiving me. I’d taken tests before—dozens of them, in fact—each time met with disappointment. But these lines were unyielding, stark against the white background. I was—
“Pregnant?”
The word tasted foreign on my tongue. I sat down heavily on the edge of the bathtub, my breath caught somewhere between disbelief and elation. It was a miracle, I thought. At my age, miracles were supposed to be the stuff of fairy tales, not my reality. I let the joy wash over me, hot tears spilling over my cheeks, a mixture of laughter and cries that echoed in the tiled room like a symphony of hope.
Old Dreams and New Hope
