That’s the part that hurts the most to admit—especially now.

When I was little, my biological mom remarried. She moved to another state, started a new family, a new life, and somehow I didn’t fit into it. Visits turned into phone calls, phone calls turned into holiday texts, and eventually we spoke maybe once a year. Sometimes less. Eva was the one who braided my hair before school, sat through parent-teacher meetings, stayed up with me when I was sick, and cried quietly when I left for college. She never missed a birthday. Not one.

But no matter how good Eva was, there was always this empty place inside me shaped exactly like my biological mother.

So when I found out I was pregnant—with twins—that emptiness flared to life again. Suddenly, my biological mom was calling. Texting. Sending baby name suggestions. She talked about being a “doting grandmother,” about how this was her second chance. I let myself believe it. I wanted to believe it.

Then she gave me the ultimatum.

She said she wouldn’t step foot in the delivery room if Eva was there. She said it calmly, like it was the most reasonable thing in the world. “I just can’t do that,” she told me. “It would be too uncomfortable.”

I didn’t sleep for days after that conversation.

In the end, desperation won. That fragile, aching hope that maybe—finally—I could have the mother-daughter bond I’d missed my whole life. I called Eva and told her she couldn’t come to the hospital.

I still hear her voice in my head. Soft. Careful. Like she didn’t want to scare me away.

She asked, “Did I do something wrong?”

Continue reading…