“It’s time,” she told the doctor, a smile lighting up her tired face, “my baby is ready to meet the world.”
But as the doctor examined her, his expression changed completely. He called in other specialists, and murmurs began to fill the room.
When he finally spoke, his words shattered the illusion she had built up over months.
“Ma’am… I’m so sorry,” he said in a restrained voice. “You’re not pregnant. What you have in your womb isn’t a baby, it’s a large tumor.”
The weight of a lost dream
Her heart began to pound. “It can’t be,” she cried through tears. “I felt movement, I saw positive tests, I heard a heartbeat.”
The doctor nodded carefully. “The tumor releases the same hormones that appear during pregnancy. It’s extremely rare, but it can happen.”
She had rejected modern studies, convinced that they could harm her supposed child, wishing to experience motherhood naturally, like so many women before her.
