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Pregnancy & Maternity
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… “Don’t take him home. He won’t live long anyway… One day you’ll thank me for this decision,” my husband said about our newborn son before walking out of the hospital that very same day. And in that moment, I made a decision I might still regret for the rest of my life 
PART 1
When my son was born, no one in the room celebrated.
I didn’t hear any of the usual words I had imagined throughout my entire pregnancy.
No one said how beautiful my baby was.
Babies& Toddlers
The doctor simply looked at the nurse, then at me.
My husband, Mike, stood near the window, almost as if he didn’t dare come closer to my bed.
“What’s wrong with my baby?” I barely managed to ask.
The doctor sat down beside me.
“Sarah, your son has a very rare genetic condition. It affects the way his body ages.”
I looked at my little boy.
He was a newborn, but he didn’t look like other newborn babies. His skin was thin, there were already tiny wrinkles on his face, and his hands were so delicate that I was almost afraid to touch them.
But when they placed him against my chest, his tiny fingers wrapped around mine.
At that moment, I saw nothing else.
Only my son.
We had been calling him Jake since the fifth month of my pregnancy.
Then the doctor said the sentence that changed everything.
“We cannot tell you how long he will live.”
Mike turned around.
“You mean… a few years?”
The doctor was silent for a moment.
“Possibly. Maybe longer. There is no exact prediction.”
That evening, Mike said something that made my blood run cold.
“Sarah, we shouldn’t take him home.”
I thought I had misunderstood him.
“What?”
“Think about our lives. Think about him. We’re going to become attached to him, and then we’re going to lose him. You’ll be destroyed. So will I.”
I held my baby tighter.
“He’s our son.”
Mike sat beside me.
“That’s exactly why I’m saying this. The doctors can find an appropriate facility for him. There will be specialists there. If he isn’t going to have a long life… maybe it’s better to let go now.”
“You’re telling me to leave my baby here?”
“I’m telling you that we should save ourselves from pain that is inevitable.”
I didn’t sleep that night.
Little Jake slept beside me.
I counted every breath he took.
One.
Two.
Three.
And each time, part of me wondered whether Mike was right.
But then another thought nearly suffocated me.
If I left my son there, he might one day leave this world without ever knowing that his mother loved him.
The next morning, the doctor walked into the room carrying paperwork.
Mike was there too.
He placed a pen in front of me.
“One signature and everything will be arranged,” he said. “Then we can go home and try to live our lives.”
I picked up the pen.
My hand was shaking so badly that I could barely hold it.
Then I looked at little Jake.
He opened his eyes.
And at that exact moment, I made my decision.
After what I did next, my husband simply stood up and walked away.
At the door, he stopped, looked back at me, and said one sentence whose true meaning I wouldn’t understand until many years later…
