“You’re going on vacation again! You’d be better off having a baby!” the mother-in-law scolded her daughter-in-law, who had been married to her son for seven years. But just then, her son walked in and revealed the secret he and his wife had kept hidden all those years. When his mother heard the truth, she turned pale… 😢
“Are you planning another vacation? To Greece this time? Last year, you went to Italy, and recently you spent some time in the mountains! When are you planning to have children?”
Elena was sitting at the kitchen table, watching her daughter-in-law, Andrea, wash the dishes.
“We’re thinking about it, Mama Elena,” the young woman replied quietly.
“Well, it certainly doesn’t look like it! All you do is travel, go to restaurants, and post pictures on the internet. You’re already thirty-four! When I was your age, I was raising two children!”
Andrea remained silent and continued washing the plates.
In seven years of marriage, she had heard those words so many times that she knew every one of her mother-in-law’s accusations by heart. Every visit ended with the same conversation.
“Tell me, what are you missing? You have a house, a car, and you both work. Or do you think you’ll stay young forever?”
“Mama Elena, please, can we not talk about this…?”
“No, my dear, listen to me! I won’t live forever. I want to hold at least one grandchild in my arms while I’m still alive!”
Andrea turned off the tap. For a few seconds, she stood with her back to her mother-in-law, gripping a wet dish towel tightly.
“Do you think we travel because we don’t want children?” she asked quietly.
“What else am I supposed to think?”
At that moment, her husband, Michael, walked into the kitchen. He saw his wife’s face and immediately understood what they had been talking about.
“Mom, enough. How much longer are you going to torment her?”
“I’m just asking a question! Doesn’t a mother have the right to dream of having grandchildren?”
Michael walked over to his wife, put an arm around her shoulders, and turned to his mother.
“Do you remember when we told you two months ago that we were going to the mountains for a vacation?”
“Of course I remember. What about it?”
“Well, Mom, we weren’t on vacation at all that time…”
Andrea turned sharply toward her husband.
“Michael, please, don’t…”
But he gently took her hand.
“No, my love. She needs to know.”
Elena slowly rose from her chair.
“My son, what are you talking about? What are you hiding from me?”
Michael looked his mother straight in the eyes and said something that made Elena turn pale and sink heavily back into her chair… 😨
The full story is in the first comment 👇
“Mom, we didn’t go to the mountains that time,” Michael said quietly. “We were at a clinic. Andrea was undergoing her third fertility treatment in an attempt to get pregnant.”
Elena looked at her daughter-in-law in confusion.
“What kind of treatment?”
“IVF, Mom. We’ve been undergoing treatment for several years. We’ve spent almost all our savings, but nothing has worked.”
His mother-in-law slowly sank into her chair.
“My God… And I had no idea…”
“Do you know what we did after that trip?” Michael continued. “We sat at home and cried. Because the doctors had told us once again that the attempt had failed.”
Andrea turned toward the window, wiping away her tears.
“And we decided to go to Greece after we lost our baby,” she added quietly. “I was nine weeks pregnant. We had already bought tiny socks and little baby clothes… Every evening, I used to talk to our little one.”
Andrea’s voice began to tremble.
“And then our baby was gone. I couldn’t even bring myself to enter the room we had prepared for the baby. That’s why Michael suggested we go away for at least a few days.”
Elena covered her face with her hands.
“My darling, why didn’t you tell me?”
Andrea looked at her with red-rimmed eyes.
“How could I? Every time, you asked when we were finally going to have a baby. You said we only cared about having fun. But after every failed treatment, I could barely find the strength to get out of bed.”
Her mother-in-law burst into tears.
“Forgive me, my girl. I thought you were simply putting off having children until later…”
She walked over to Andrea and gently wrapped her arms around her.
“I wanted so badly to become a grandmother that I completely stopped thinking about what you were going through.”
Andrea leaned against her and, for the first time in many years, cried on her shoulder.
“I want to give you a grandchild, too. I want it so much. But sometimes, I’m even afraid to keep hoping…”
“Then we won’t talk about when a baby will come anymore,” Elena replied. “The most important thing is that you’re healthy and happy. And I’ll always be here for you.”
From that day on, everything changed.
Elena stopped asking painful questions. Instead, she visited with Andrea’s favorite cakes, helped around the house, and simply spent time with them.
One day, after another doctor’s appointment, Andrea called her herself.
“Mama Elena, can I come over? I’m having a really hard day…”
“Of course, my dear. I’ll be waiting for you.”
And for the first time, Andrea realized that she no longer had to hide her tears from her mother-in-law.
Elena never asked again when she would have grandchildren. At last, she understood that sometimes, behind a woman’s ordinary smile lies a pain that no one even suspects exists.
