Through artificial insemination, I went through with it. I got pregnant.
The day my little girl was born, I felt both joy and guilt tearing through me. She was beautiful — tiny fingers, soft curls, eyes that looked so much like Hailey’s when she was a baby.
But when I introduced her to Hailey, expecting tears of love, something inside me shattered.
Hailey didn’t reach for the baby. She just stared at me like she didn’t recognize the person standing before her.
“Mom,” she whispered, “what have you done?”
She didn’t want to hold her. Didn’t coo over her. Didn’t visit often.
And the more I tried to push her to bond with the baby — to see her as something precious — the more distant she became. Every conversation turned into an argument. Every visit ended in tears.
