The room was painted a soft, cloud-like grey. In the corner stood the crib, assembled by my husband, Mark, with shaking hands and a hopeful heart. Inside lay the stuffed elephant I had bought the day my sister, Jessica, called me with the news.
“I can’t do six,” she had wept over the phone. “I can’t handle another one. But you… you’ve wanted this for so long.”
It was the answer to a decade of prayers. My husband and I struggled with infertility for years. We had exhausted our savings on treatments that failed and doctors who shrugged. But here was Jessica—my chaotic, fertile sister, who has five kids—offering us a miracle.
She was pregnant again and didn’t want it. She promised to let us adopt.
For nine months, we lived on that promise. We paid for her prenatal vitamins. We drove her to appointments. We prepared the nursery, named him, and bought everything. We named him Leo. We bought the car seat. We allowed ourselves, finally, to breathe.
The call came at 4:00 AM. Jessica was in labor.
Mark and I rushed to the hospital, the empty car seat strapped into the back. We sat in the waiting room for hours, holding hands, terrified and exhilaratingly happy. We were about to be parents.
Then, my phone buzzed. A Facebook notification.
Jessica posted a new photo.
I frowned. Why was she posting? Was Leo born?
I opened the app. There was a photo of Jessica in the hospital bed, looking dramatically disheveled but beautiful, holding the newborn against her chest. The caption wasn’t an announcement of birth. It was a manifesto.
“God’s waiting for the right time for you,” it began, tagging me directly. My stomach dropped. I read on. “I’ve decided to keep my baby.”.
I stared at the screen, the air leaving my lungs. She hadn’t told the doctor. She hadn’t told the nurse. She hadn’t even sent her husband out to the waiting room to break the news to us gently. She had announced it to her 800 followers first.
The comments were already rolling in. “You’re such a good mom, Jess!” “So brave to keep him!” “God has a plan!”
I looked at the double doors leading to the maternity ward. I realized then that there was no Leo coming home with us. The crib would stay empty. The elephant would gather dust.
Jessica hadn’t changed her mind in a moment of maternal instinct. This was calculated. She had strung us along for nine months because she liked being the “generous sister” who was saving us. And now, she was pivoting to the role of the “devoted mother” who couldn’t bear to part with her child.
She enjoyed the attention of the tragedy more than she cared about my heart.
She wanted the sympathy of the “hard choice” and the glory of the “redemption.” My pain—the shattering of my entire world—was just content for her feed.
Mark saw my face. He took the phone from my hand, read the post, and closed his eyes. He didn’t say a word. He just stood up, picked up the empty car seat, and walked toward the exit.
I followed him. We didn’t go into the room to fight. We didn’t comment on the post. We just walked out into the blinding morning sun, leaving my sister to her likes and her comments, while we went home to dismantle a life that had never really existed.
