The sunlight through the window, the warm weight of my sleeping daughter, the deep bone-tired peace that comes after a hard thing survived.

I thought about the four years it had taken to arrive at that hour.

All the negative tests, quietly thrown away.

All the baby showers I had attended for other women with a smile that cost me something.

All the nights Luca and I had lain awake, not talking about the thing we were both thinking about, the child who would not come.

I had believed, during those years, that the waiting was cruel and pointless, a stretch of suffering with no meaning, and I had resented it.