The night Ella and Sophie were born “should have been the happiest of my life.” Instead, it exposed cracks in my marriage. During pregnancy, I endured tension with my mother-in-law, Lorraine, who hinted that “maybe one would be a boy.” When the ultrasound confirmed two girls, she joked about “trying again,” as if my daughters were temporary. I believed fatherhood would change Derek—that seeing his daughters would make him protective and firm. Labor lasted twenty hours. When the girls arrived, Derek cried and called them “amazing.” For a moment, we felt united. But the next morning, as I waited to...
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