LOGINPOV: RozaI drove to the clinic with my heart pounding.The moment Soren told me his genetic results were reassuring, relief had flooded through me. For days, I had watched him wrestle with questions neither of us could answer. Now, finally, he had something positive to hold on to.I needed to see him.When I arrived, the receptionist directed me towards the counselling rooms. I hurried down the corridor, wondering what I would find, until I spotted him sitting on a bench outside one of the rooms.His eyes were red, his hair slightly dishevelled, and a crumpled tissue rested in his hand.My composed, stubborn husband looked as though life had knocked him off his feet.Literally.I rushed towards him.“Soren.”He looked up, and whatever he had been trying to hold together seemed to crumble again.I sat beside him and wrapped my arms around his shoulders. He pulled me close, burying his face against my neck.“It’s all right,” I whispered. “I’ve got you.”“I know.”His voice broke.I hel
POV: RozaI drove to the clinic with my heart pounding.The moment Soren told me his genetic results were reassuring, relief had flooded through me. For days, I had watched him wrestle with questions neither of us could answer. Now, finally, he had something positive to hold on to.I needed to see him.When I arrived, the receptionist directed me towards the counselling rooms. I hurried down the corridor, wondering what I would find, until I spotted him sitting on a bench outside one of the rooms.His eyes were red, his hair slightly dishevelled, and a crumpled tissue rested in his hand.My composed, stubborn husband looked as though life had knocked him off his feet.Literally.I rushed towards him.“Soren.”He looked up, and whatever he had been trying to hold together seemed to crumble again.I sat beside him and wrapped my arms around his shoulders. He pulled me close, burying his face against my neck.“It’s all right,” I whispered. “I’ve got you.”“I know.”His voice broke.I hel
POV: SorenI had faced difficult decisions before. I had made choices that cost me relationships, opportunities, and years of my life.But sitting in the genetic counsellor’s office, with a consent form in front of me and a pen between my fingers, I discovered there was a difference between making a decision that affected me and making one that might affect my children.The form was simple enough. My name, my medical history, my signature.The consequences were not.“There’s no obligation to proceed today,” the counsellor reminded me. “Genetic testing is a personal decision. Some people prefer to know what they might be dealing with, while others find that the uncertainty is easier to live with. Neither choice is inherently wrong.”I nodded as though I were considering her words objectively.In truth, I had been considering them for days. I wanted answers, but I was terrified of them.What if I discovered that the same condition that had shaped my mother’s final years could one day th
POV: SorenI had always believed knowing the truth was better than living with questions. By the time we arrived at the genetic counselling appointment, however, I wasn’t entirely sure I still believed that.Roza sat beside me in the waiting room, her fingers intertwined with mine. She had been quieter than usual that morning, occasionally glancing at me as though she wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words.I squeezed her hand. “You know we don’t have to figure everything out today, right?”“I know.”“Then why do you look like you’re preparing for a court hearing?”She gave me a small smile. “Because I’m married to a man who thinks making jokes will solve everything.”“It has worked on several occasions.”“Name three.”I pretended to think about it, and she laughed. The sound eased some of the tension in my chest. I wanted to keep her laughing, to make this pregnancy as peaceful as possible. But pretending we weren’t afraid wouldn’t make the uncertainty disappear.When th
POV: RozaThe dizziness disappeared before I could convince myself that something terrible was happening, but the fear it left behind wasn’t nearly as easy to shake.After sitting at my desk for several minutes, I returned to work, determined not to make a small inconvenience bigger than it needed to be. I had a baby to look forward to, a husband who had practically cried himself into happiness when I told him the news, and a daughter who would probably spend the next few months asking when her baby brother or sister was arriving. I had every reason to be happy.Yet, beneath that happiness, something uncomfortable had begun to grow.It was fear.I recognised it immediately, even though I desperately wanted to pretend otherwise. That evening, Soren found me sitting on the edge of our bed, staring at nothing in particular. He had been telling me something about his day, but I had barely heard a word.“Roza?”I looked up. “Hmm?”He narrowed his eyes slightly. “Are you Okay?”“Of course,
POV: RozaEighteen months passed in a way I would never have believed possible. Looking back, I sometimes struggled to understand how so much of our lives had changed in such a relatively short time. There had been no single morning when I woke up and discovered that everything was suddenly perfect. No extraordinary moment when the world announced that we had finally suffered enough and could now live in peace. Instead, life changed quietly, almost cautiously, until one day I looked around and realised that we were no longer spending every waking moment preparing ourselves for the next disaster.We were simply living.At first, I hardly trusted it. I had spent so long anticipating bad news that happiness itself sometimes made me nervous. Whenever the phone rang unexpectedly, my stomach tightened. Whenever someone asked to see me urgently, my mind immediately began searching for the problem I had somehow failed to notice. Even when things were going well, a small part of me remained c







