"You have ovarian cancer, Selin," said Vanessa—my colleague, my friend, and now my oncologist.
I stared at her, numb. The words felt suspended in the air like smoke, like they didn't quite belong to me yet. As a pediatric surgeon, I knew what that diagnosis meant. I had seen the scans, I had done the coursework, I had assisted in the surgeries. I knew.
But still, I asked.
"Will I be infertile?"
My voice came out smaller than I meant it to. Like it wasn't coming from a doctor who had graduated top of her class. Like it was coming from a girl who had prayed for a crib long before she ever dreamed of a white coat.
Vanessa didn't answer right away. Her face, usually composed and clinical, crumbled. Her eyes softened with something worse than grief—pity. She gave a slow nod.
That was all it took.
I didn't sob. I didn't scream. I just sat there as the tears slipped down silently, like they knew better than to make a scene.
Everyone knew how much I wanted to be a mother. I never hid that dream. Not from the world. Not from myself. It was the one thing I held onto even when everything else slipped through. And now, even that was unraveling—slowly, cruelly.
It wasn't over—not yet. But I could feel it slipping. Like sand through my fingers. No matter how tightly I tried to hold on.
I thanked Vanessa—why did I even thank her?—and stood up.
She offered to walk me out, but I shook my head. I didn't want comfort. Not yet. I didn't want a hug or a sympathetic hand on my back. I didn't want strength.
I wanted a child.
And now, I might never have one.
The hallway outside the consultation room was too bright, too clean, too silent. I walked slowly, deliberately, like every step was a delay in facing the rest of my life.
A life that might never hear the word "mama."
And for the first time in years, I felt utterly, heartbreakingly powerless.
I walked out of Vanessa's office, trying to keep my spine straight even as the rest of me threatened to collapse. My mind wasn't in the hallway—it was far away. Caught in memories I hadn't invited.
Suddenly, I was replaying every moment I'd ever had with a child.
The toddler who'd offered me her teddy bear before surgery.
The boy who called me "angel in white" with a gap-toothed smile.
The newborns whose first cries filled the delivery room like music—and sometimes, silence that haunted us all.
But it wasn't just the good moments that echoed now. It was the messy, aching ones too. The way children clung to their mothers when they were sick. The desperation in their eyes. The way they screamed for someone to make it better—and how often, I did.
And now, I never would.
I didn't even realize where my feet had taken me until I was standing in front of the NICU.
The doors were open, just slightly, and the low rhythmic beeping of monitors spilled into the hallway like a heartbeat I didn't belong to anymore.
I walked in, slow. Automatic. Familiar.
My eyes wandered from incubator to incubator, instinctively reading the charts, assessing the vitals, checking for signs of distress or improvement.
Some were stable. Some were fighting. One baby was smiling in her sleep, her tiny fists curled beside her face like she'd already won.
I loved this place. It was sacred.
But today, it felt cruel.
And that's when it happened.
I broke.
Right there in the middle of the NICU, with wires and soft light and lullabies humming from someone's phone—I shattered.
The tears came fast, messy, and endless. I pressed a hand to my mouth to keep from sobbing aloud, but it didn't work. My knees gave way before I could find a chair. I sank to the ground like my body had finally decided it couldn't hold me together either.
"Selin!"
The familiar voice snapped me back.
I looked up through blurry eyes—and there she was.
Marianne Gabriel.
Marianne had been my friend since high school.
Sharp-witted, fiercely loyal, beloved by every floor of this hospital. She wasn't a doctor—she was the hospital's lawyer—but she knew these halls better than most of us. She even had a corner office that everyone jokingly called "the courtroom."
She rushed to me, dropping to her knees without hesitation and wrapping her arms around me.
"I knew something was wrong," she whispered, her voice cracking as she pulled me close.
I couldn't speak. I just clung to her like I had nothing else.
She held me tighter, murmuring reassurances I barely registered.
Marianne always knew.
She could sense things before anyone else. She could read a room in a second, a person in a glance. And when she hadn't seen me all morning, something must've told her to look for me.
She was right.
Something was wrong.
Everything was.
And in that moment—in the NICU, surrounded by lives I'd once helped save—I mourned the one life I might never bring into the world.
Marianne's arms were still around me as I cried in the NICU, her breath steady against my temple. My chest ached—not from the diagnosis, but from this unbearable kind of grief that felt like it had always been there, just waiting to catch up.
And suddenly, I wasn't in the NICU anymore.
I was seventeen.
In the girls' bathroom of Saint Maria's Orthodox High School, hiding in the last stall with my fists clenched against my knees, doing everything I could to stop from crying out loud.
It was the girls.
They laughed. Not at my ambition—but at me.
"With that face?"
"She's too plain to ever be seen in an OR."
"Surgeons don't look like her."
I was already used to being overlooked—but that day, I felt erased.
I hid in the stall, heart pounding, shame pooling in my stomach like wet concrete. I hadn't cried yet. But I was close.
Then: "Selin," came Marianne's voice, soft and steady. "Come out."
I didn't answer. I didn't have it in me.
She didn't wait. She just crawled under the stall door like she had done a dozen times before. Marianne Gabriel—sharp-tongued, smooth-haired, perfect-uniformed Marianne—sat on the floor beside me, her presence a balm.
"What are you doing?" I mumbled, voice thick.
She leaned her head back against the wall. "You think I'm letting my girl cry alone in a bathroom stall while a bunch of knockoff Barbies talk trash?"
I tried to laugh, but it came out as a sob. I wiped my face angrily.
"They said I was ugly," I whispered. "Like I didn't already know."
Marianne turned her whole body toward me. "Ugly?" she repeated, like the word offended her.
"They're blind, Selin," she said fiercely. "You were kissed by Aphrodite herself."
I blinked. "What?"
"You—" she gestured like she was painting me in the air, "You have hair like midnight silk, skin like ivory, and those eyes…" She leaned in, one finger hovering near my face. "One green. One hazel. It's like the forest and the earth left their mark on you."
I blinked faster, and the tears started again. "Stop—"
"No," she said, firm but warm. "You are not ugly. You are unforgettable. They mock what they fear. And those girls? They'll peak at 23 and marry some dentist who cheats on them."
I laughed—wet, broken, but real.
She smiled. "And you'll be the surgeon they call when their kid needs saving."
Back in the NICU, I was crying again—but not the same way.
Marianne was still there, still holding me. Her grip was fierce now, her eyes scanning mine like she was looking for a wound she couldn't see.
"Selin, what is it? What's wrong? What is wrong, love?" she asked again and again, her voice trembling now, laced with panic and helpless affection.
I couldn't speak. My throat burned. My chest heaved.
"I'm Infertile."
"MY BODY BETRAYED ME, Marianne! I'LL NEVER GROW LIFE INSIDE ME—I'LL NEVER HEAR SOMEONE CALL ME MAMA!"
"I CAN'T BE A MOTHER, Marianne! I CAN SAVE LIVES BUT I CAN'T CREATE ONE! DON'T YOU GET IT? I'LL NEVER HOLD A CHILD THAT'S MINE!"
The words tore out of me like they'd been living in my ribs for years, like they had claws. My voice cracked, and I fell forward into her arms, sobbing so violently I could barely breathe.
She caught me. Just like she always had.
Until I blacked out.