When I saw the tears in her eyes, panic took over. I said something horrible, something I can never take back. “I’m sorry, but she’s still really my mom,” I stammered. “Well… unlike, ugh, you. I love you so much anyway.”
The delivery itself was long and exhausting. Hours blurred together. My biological mom sat in the room, but she wasn’t really there. She complained about the hospital coffee. She scrolled on her phone. When I cried out in pain, she told me to “try to relax.”
I remember thinking, through the haze, that Eva would have held my hand.
At one point, I turned my head and froze. Through the glass window in the hallway, I saw Eva walk past my room. She was carrying a tray with coffee cups and sandwiches.
She didn’t try to come in. She didn’t wave. She didn’t cause a scene.
Later, a nurse quietly told me the truth.
Eva had been sitting in the waiting room for fourteen hours.
She had coordinated everything with my husband. She made sure everyone was fed. She brought a bag of my favorite postpartum snacks—the kind I crave when I’m stressed—that she knew my biological mom would never think to pack. She asked the nurses how I was doing. She waited.
After the twins were born, my biological mom rushed to take photos. She posed, smiled, uploaded them immediately. “My beautiful grandbabies,” she captioned them.
Just for a second.
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