After months of wondering whether the strange changes in her body meant something terrible was happening, the child in her arms was breathing, moving, and completely unaware of how frightened her mother had been.
Doctors continued monitoring Nia after the birth.
As her pregnancy hormones fell, the unusual hair growth slowed. Over the following months, much of it became less noticeable, while the ovarian growth itself began shrinking.
One afternoon, Nia visited her mother and showed her the pregnancy photograph Marcus had refused to delete.
Her mother smiled.
“Your grandmother would have understood that picture better than anyone.”
Nia looked at the photograph again.
Months earlier, she had seen only the hair she wanted to hide.
Now she saw something completely different.
She saw the body that had carried the daughter she had waited six years to meet.
