“You are, indeed, pregnant. Congratulations, Imogen.”

Dr. Katz, my regular gynecologist, gushes as she squeezes my arm, happiness exuding from her every pore.

The smile that is splitting her face is put there because she knows how long Theo and I have been trying to have a baby.

I swallow, trying to mask the sheer terror on my face. “How far along am I?”

“Based on your hormone levels and when you thought your last period was, I’d say you’re around eight weeks.” She claps her hands together.

I only came into her office two days ago because I was having massive cramping, and I thought something might be wrong with the only ovary I had left. That coupled with how nauseous I was feeling … I thought maybe I’d have to go in for surgery or a procedure.

They’d taken blood and done an ultrasound, but the radiologist who read that kind of scan hadn’t been in. Then I got a call to come back and meet with Dr. Katz.

And here I was, so shocked I could fall on the floor in the middle of this exam room.

Pregnant. I was pregnant.

How long had I been waiting to hear those words again? And how much agony and suffering had I gone through to have this tiny human in my uterus?

Enough that it had ruined our marriage.

How ironic was this? Fate sure was a cruel master.

Dr. Katz hands me the pictures from the sonogram, and I stare at them, tears dripping onto the flimsy picture paper. They’re a mixture of pure joy and shocking grief.

All I can think about is Theo’s face when he asked me to promise that I would leave him. That I would walk away forever. His expression had been cold as ice, solid as stone.

I may have been the one to walk away, but he was the one putting an end to us.

And now I was pregnant. God, how the hell had this happened? We were barely having sex there at the end.

Except for that one time, after I’d come home tipsy on too many glasses of wine after going out with friends. I’d wanted to feel close to my husband, and so I’d drunkenly seduced him until he’d given in, undressing and pinning me to our bed. The sex had been cathartic, hot, fast. It could not be categorized as making love … and a pang of sadness hits my heart. This baby had been conceived in a moment of desperation, at a time where I’d been lonely and trying to save the last shreds of our marriage.

Eight weeks along, and I’d barely noticed it. I’d mistaken the nausea, cramping, bloating and dizziness as just symptoms of a broken heart. I’d thought that I was feeling like crap because my life was crap, at this moment. I was only a month away from the first trimester ending, and I should be ecstatic right now.

But, my husband had made me vow to leave him. And I wasn’t foolish enough to think that a baby would solve the deep-seated issues in our marriage. I’d seen all of the soapy dramas about how a pregnancy used to trap someone never turns out well.

I can’t tell him.

The thought is a whisper of an idea in my head. No … of course I have to tell him. It’s his baby. But …

By the time I even start to show, Theo will have walked away and plans on never looking back. He told me, point blank, that he wants nothing to do with me after he helps me secure my position in my family’s company. And of course, I’m going to keep this miracle child. That is, if I even make it to full term. Who knows, I could lose this baby. And if I told Theo, and I did lose it … I can’t stand the look on his face at another one of my failures.

But if I make it to forty weeks, I’m going to keep him or her by myself. I can raise this baby on my own.

No matter how much it will kill me inside to not share the experience with the man I love most.