If the baby looks like my ex, I’ll refuse … I’ll give it life and then walk away!” – Lera muttered in a hollow voice

**Diary Entry 12th November 1989**

*”If the baby looks like him, Ill give it up I swear, Ill give it up!”* Lauras voice was hollow, drained of all feeling.

*”Its too late for regrets now, love. Youll have to see it through,”* the doctor said firmly. *”Unless you want to risk never having children at all.”*

Laura stumbled out of the consulting room and collapsed onto the waiting room sofa, trying to steady herself. She wanted to cryout of anger, out of hurtbut the tears wouldnt come. Lifting her head, she watched through the window as the autumn wind tore at the last stubborn leaves clinging to the branches.

She felt just like those leaveshelpless, battered, unwanted. And now this baby, once so desperately wanted, felt like a cruel twist of fate. How quickly everything had changed.

Outside the clinic, she passed a happy couplehusband with his arm around his wife, both beaming. The sight made her ache even more. Laura dragged herself to the bus stop, numb.

Back at home, she shut herself in her room for nearly an hour. Her mother, Margaret, pleaded with her to eat something, but Laura didnt speak a word. Defeated, Margaret retreated to the kitchen, sinking into a chair. The flat was thick with silence.

Eventually, Laura emerged and sat across from her mother, the quiet stretching between them like a chasm.

*”If it looks like him, Ill give it up,”* she repeated, her voice flat.

Margaret jolted, her daughters words snapping her out of her thoughts. *”Dont be ridiculous, Laura! Think what youre saying! A hardworking girl like you, giving up her own childwhat will people say? What will your colleagues think? And its not the babys fault its fathers a rotten bloke.”*

*”Who cares what people think?”* Laura snapped, her voice breaking. She looked like a cornered animalwide brown eyes full of fear, lips trembling, shoulders slumped.

*”I care,”* Margaret said firmly. *”And Ill help you. I wont let you abandon my grandchild.”*

*”Help? With what? You barely make ends meet as it is!”*

*”Well manage,”* Margaret insisted. *”People survived worse in the warthis is peacetime, 1989!”*

Laura exhaled sharply. She was terrified now, and the future was a dark, shapeless thing. She didnt know then that the ’90s would bring their own cruelty. All she knew today was that David had left her.

Theyd married six months ago after a year and a half together. A young, handsome coupleno one couldve foreseen this heartbreak.

Laura remembered every second of the day David came home a different man. Hed tried to act normal, but shed seen itthe distance in his eyes, the way he barely looked at her. Hed fallen out of love.

Hed known she was pregnantthat was the only thing stopping him from leaving outright. For a month, she begged him to explain, but it wasnt until he finally walked out that she learned the truth.

Shed been hysterical when Davids mother, Helen, came over, crying herself, never expecting such betrayal from her son.

The story went back to their school days. In his final year, David had gone on a camping trip with classmates from across the country. There, hed met Emilyfell for her instantly. Two weeks, inseparable. Theyd exchanged addresses, but when David moved, he lost hers. No letters ever came.

Hed tried to forget her, but over time, he convinced himself she was his one true love. Three years later, he met Laura, thought hed moved on, and married her. Theyd started trying for a babyhappy, hopeful.

Then Emily reappeared. She hadnt kept his address either but placed an ad in the local paper. David saw it, invited her down, booked her a hotel.

At first, he just wanted to see the girl hed never forgotten. But one meeting was enough. The decision tore him apart, but he made itleave Laura, pregnant, and run away with Emily.

At work, Lauras colleagues rallied around her. A new girl, barely settled in, sighed, *”A babys a blessingmy husband and Ive been trying five years.”*

*”Exactlywith a husband,”* Laura muttered bitterly. There was no joy in this pregnancy now, just the sting of abandonment.

At home, Margaret tried everything to ease Lauras grief. Then Helen visited, weeping, begging for David to come back. Shed never warm to Emilynot after shed taken David hundreds of miles away. (Never mind that hed gone willingly.)

Between the two would-be grandmothers, Laura felt both comforted and suffocated. But the real fear? Meeting her baby.

What if it had Davids eyes, his nose, his lips? A lifetime of looking at her child and seeing his betrayal? That terrified her.

When Laura left the hospital, she hadnt expected a crowdMargaret, Helen, her best mate Sarah with her husband, her sister with her niece, even her whole team from work. Everyone wanted to hold the baby. Everyone wished them well.

Back home, Helen cradled her grandson, smiling through tears. *”Spitting image of David,”* she whispered.

Laura heard. She took the baby and said firmly, *”No. His names James.”*

Helen and Margaret exhaledrelief. It would be alright.

Twenty years later, in 2010, James was at university. At home, he doted on his two little sistershad helped raise them, the perfect big brother.

Laura remarried five years after James was born. Her new husband, Richard, was a good stepfathernear enough a real dadand father to their girls.

Laura adored her daughters. But James? She loved him beyond words. The memory of that desperate threatto give him up if he looked like Davidhaunted her. She couldnt bear to think of it.

David and Emily, that great love, divorced after five years. Emily took their daughter abroad. David remarried, lives decently, sees James now and then.

Laura doesnt stop him. But she feels nothing for David now. Just the man who fathered her beloved James.

**Lesson learned:** Time heals, love grows, and the things we fear most sometimes become our greatest blessings.