Jealousy.S
Terror.
Then compassion.
The last one was somehow the hardest.
The DNA testing happened the following morning.
Because of the seriousness of the clinic’s possible error, they expedited everything.
Ivanna waited at my house.
We barely spoke.
Grace slept peacefully in her bassinet, unaware that two adults were watching her as though the entire world might change depending on a telephone call.
When it finally came, I put the doctor on speaker.
“Margaret. Ivanna. We have the results.”
Without realizing it, I reached for Ivanna’s hand.
She held mine.
“Grace is genetically related to Margaret.”
My eyes closed.
The breath that came out of me sounded almost like a sob.
Mine.
My daughter.
The egg had been mine.
Ivanna squeezed my hand.
I opened my eyes, expecting relief to fill the room.
Instead, the doctor continued.
“But there is another matter we need to discuss.”
Ivanna’s fingers went rigid around mine.
The laboratory investigation had confirmed that there had indeed been an error.
Just not the one we feared.
During the same incident that created the record discrepancy, Ivanna’s final stored egg had been mistakenly discarded.
Nobody spoke.
The doctor apologized.
He began explaining internal investigations, insurance, liability, legal representatives, and formal reviews.
I barely heard any of it.
I looked at the woman beside me.
Ivanna had come to my house believing that perhaps, through an impossible mistake, the child she had spent years wanting had somehow survived.
For twenty-four hours, a door she’d believed closed had opened again.
And now someone had slammed it shut.
She had not come to steal my daughter.
She had come because the clinic had accidentally returned her hope.
Then taken it away for the second time.
When the call ended, Ivanna stood.
“I should go.”
