Three months into my pregnancy, the world had already begun to shift. Advice came pouring in - unsolicited, overwhelming - from mothers, aunts, cousins. My body became a battleground of expectations. I smiled through most of it, tried to absorb the wisdom, even when it felt like noise.
My partner was there, nodding, listening, but I knew he had his own ways of tuning it out. Men aren't expected to carry the weight of creation. That burden is reserved for women - for those who carry life and, in doing so, surrender parts of themselves.
I gave up alcohol. Junk food. Late nights. I worked through deadlines with swollen feet and cravings that came like waves in the middle of the night. And he - my loving, doting husband - never once complained. He drove me to ice cream parlors at midnight, brewed tea when I couldn't sleep, held my hand when the nausea hit hard. We were in it together. Or so I thought.
Until that night.
That one night that tore through our lives like a wildfire, leaving behind ashes where love once bloomed. A death in the family. A loss so profound it didn't just take a life - it took our future, our joy, our belief in the world we had built. And in the aftermath, we didn't just lose the child. We lost each other.
Now, the silence is louder than any scream. The distance colder than any winter. And the grief - oh, the grief - is no longer shared. It's divided. His pain versus mine. But in truth, we both lost. And neither of us knows how to find our way back.