She believed she was pregnant, but what she was actually carrying in her womb terrified her

She thought she was finally expecting a baby and her dream would come true. However, she couldn’t imagine what was inside her belly. When the doctors found out what it was, everyone was shocked.

“I’m Iva, I’m 35 years old, and I work as a lawyer in a big, famous firm here in my city. I’m a strong and independent woman, but I also love having fun with my friends, dancing, and trying out new restaurants. I care a lot about my appearance, so I always try to keep myself in shape and well-dressed.

My husband, John, is a kind and caring man. He is 37 years old and a history teacher at a public school. He is very dedicated to his work and cares a lot about his students. John and I met in college and started dating shortly after. We are a happy and loving couple, always finding time to do things together like walking, going to the movies, or just staying home and watching a movie.

I was always more extroverted and had many friends, while John was more introverted and preferred to stay at home reading a book. But despite these differences, we completed each other perfectly and had many interests in common, such as a passion for travel and cooking.

But ever since I married John, I’ve dreamed of becoming a mother. I always imagined what it would be like to hold my own baby in my arms, take care of him, teach him to walk, to talk, to love. I always knew that I wanted to have children, but for various reasons, it ended up not being possible—until now.

First, we were very focused on our jobs. I was building my career as a lawyer, and John was dedicating himself to developing a methodology in which his students could learn more. We wanted to have financial stability before building a family, but time passed and we ended up postponing that dream. There were also health issues that came along the way.

I had endometriosis that prevented me from getting pregnant for a while, and I was very shaken by the news. These situations made me feel that maybe I would never be able to have a baby, that maybe this dream would never come true. I felt frustrated, sad, and sometimes even guilty for not being able to fulfill this desire. Seeing my friends getting pregnant, seeing people on the street with their babies always made me question if something was wrong with me. I asked myself if I was a good wife, a good woman, a good person. I felt incomplete and insufficient.

But despite all these fears and uncertainties, I never gave up on that dream. I always believed that one day I would be a mother, that one day I would have a beautiful and blessed child.

When I realized that my period was late and I started to feel nauseous, I felt mixed emotions. ‘Am I finally going to be a mommy?’ The idea of being pregnant was a dream come true. I decided to surprise my husband to tell him the news. I spent two days thinking of a special way to tell him, and then, when John was at work, I started to prepare everything. I decorated the room with balloons, posters, and colorful banners. I prepared a box and put baby clothes inside with the message, ‘Daddy, I’m coming.’ I was very nervous, waiting for him to come home, thinking about how he would react.

When I heard the keys in the door, I ran into the living room. He walked into the house and immediately noticed the décor.

‘What’s going on here?’ he asked with a smile on his face.

I told him to sit down and handed him the box. My husband opened the gift, and immediately his eyes widened when he saw the baby outfit with the message.

‘I’m pregnant,’ I said, and his eyes filled with tears. I felt so happy at that moment. It was the realization of our biggest dream, and it would be the beginning of a new phase in our lives. John and I hugged and cried, and then we started planning and talking about what our life would be like with our little baby on the way. It was a simple surprise but full of love and meaning—a moment that would be in our memories forever.

I had even bought some baby clothes, and we started setting up the little room. We painted the room in nude tones, as we didn’t want to find out the gender before birth. We were really excited, especially since my belly was already growing. I could see that baby bump forming, and I bought several cute maternity dresses. I felt incredible.

Until John and I went for an appointment to see if everything was okay with the baby. But when the doctor looked at me with that face, everything changed. He examined me again, and I knew something was wrong when his eyes suddenly widened. I tried to remain calm as he continued to touch my belly. That’s when he said, ‘There’s something big here,’ but at that moment, my heart started to beat faster, and I started to shake with fear.

The doctor ordered some tests and told me to wait for the results. As I waited, my mind was racing. I thought of all the possibilities, wondering what could be happening to my baby. I was scared and worried, and I didn’t know what would become of me if something was really wrong with my baby.

When the doctor finally came back to the room, he told us that he needed to explain something he noticed with the test results.

‘It was the worst news I could ever imagine.’

‘I don’t have a better way to say this, but you’re not pregnant, Iva,’ the doctor said with a serious tone. Before I could ask why I was feeling all the pregnancy symptoms, he continued, ‘But you have a 2 kg lipoma on your belly.’

I didn’t understand how this could have happened. How had I not noticed anything before? I didn’t even know what a lipoma was. I felt a lump forming in my throat as the doctor explained that it was a benign tumor of adipose tissue, that it was very large and needed to be removed immediately.

‘I was in shock. So, it was never a baby?’ I asked in disbelief.

He confirmed, ‘Yes, you never had a baby inside you.’

How could something like this have happened to me, and what would I do now? I looked at John, and he was in shock. I wondered if I would be able to get over it. I was full of questions and uncertainties. I felt my world crumble around me. I got up after the doctor explained everything and left. John ran after me, yelling, ‘Wait, love,’ but I just kept walking. Nothing crossed my mind, just the phrase: ‘It’s not a baby, it’s a tumor.’

When my husband managed to reach me and touch my shoulder, I just collapsed. I cried so much I didn’t even remember I was still inside the hospital. Everyone was looking at me, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to curl up in my husband’s arms and disappear.

‘He was never here, my love, never,’ I said with an aching heart.

And worst of all, when I thought I would have to go through surgery to remove a 2 kg lipoma from inside me, I was terrified. They scheduled the procedure to remove the tumor for the end of the month, and it was torture every single day of that damn month.

I just lost the will to live. I didn’t know how to process all that information. I felt like the life I had planned for me and John was ripped away from me without warning. I couldn’t stop thinking about how big and round my belly was, but it wasn’t a baby. It was a tumor. I was devastated, destroyed. My heart ached as if it had been broken into a thousand pieces. I couldn’t eat properly, nor did I want to leave the house or go to work. I just lay on the bed hugging the pillow, crying non-stop. I spent days locked in my room, and even with my husband trying to cheer me up—poor thing, he was suffering too—I ignored it. I didn’t have the strength to handle it anymore. He would bring me food, talk to me, try to make me laugh, but nothing worked.

I couldn’t stop thinking about how life seemed so unfair and cruel. I looked at the little room we had set up for our supposed child, and I burst into tears. I’d sit there staring at the walls painted in a soft nude shade, imagining what it would be like to have a baby there. I cried and cried until my husband found me there and carefully took me out. Imagine as if you had a memory you created of a child running and playing, and it simply disappeared. That’s how I was feeling. I could no longer even fantasize about my life with my baby in my arms.

All of this affected me deeply. I felt bad both emotionally and mentally. I was afraid that the surgery to remove the lipoma would fail and that something bad would happen to me, and most of all, I was afraid that I might never have a baby again if I came out alive. I felt so lost, so desperate. It was as if life had lost all meaning, and even though I tried to cheer myself up, I knew there was something seriously wrong with me. I was depressed, and nothing seemed to help. I stopped taking care of myself, and in a few days, I was no longer that attractive woman who always tried to keep a good appearance.

Days passed, then weeks, and soon the date of surgery was approaching. A few days before the procedure, I went to bed very anxious. I was scared. Then I had a dream that changed everything. In the dream, I saw myself holding a baby, and John hugging me and saying, ‘Now we are complete, love. We did it. Finally, we are a family.’ And then I woke up.

That gave me a breath of life,

and I came back to reality. I couldn’t give up. I knew I had to be strong. I needed to face the problem head-on and overcome my fears. I couldn’t let the lipoma control my life. That’s when I decided I was going to have the surgery and then do whatever it took to get through this challenge until the day I could get pregnant.

And John was there for me. He held me tight and comforted me, and he never failed to remind me that he loved me, even when I felt incapable of loving myself. It was difficult, but little by little, I began to see that there was still hope, mainly because I really wanted to make that dream come true, and I knew that I could still have a future, even if it wasn’t quite what I had planned.

And so, with the help of my beloved husband, I slowly recovered. I started eating better, leaving the house, going back to work, and taking care of myself. Of course, there were still times when I felt sad and lost, but now I knew I had someone to lean on.

Finally, the day of surgery arrived. I was nervous and scared, but John held my hand and said that everything would be okay. But as it seemed that nothing in my life could follow a normal course, an unexpected turn left me groundless again.

During surgery, the doctors discovered something completely unexpected. Besides the tumor, there was a fetus that was developing abnormally because of the lipoma that was getting in the way. It looked like the tumor had grown big enough to compress and interfere with my baby’s growth. This was because it was located close to my uterus and affected the placental blood circulation.

Because the anesthesia was only local, I was still awake and devastated. I didn’t understand anything. John was by my side, holding my hand tightly, with no reaction. The doctors were also in shock and needed to make a quick decision.

‘Iva, we really have a problem here,’ they said. ‘There is a high risk of something fatal happening to the baby if the surgery continues, since the baby has developed almost right next to the tumor, where there was no room for it to grow. They also said it was a healthy fetus, regardless of where it was located. However, if they stopped the surgery now to try and save the fetus, it could put my life at risk.’

I was in tears, not really knowing what to do. I couldn’t believe there was a real baby in my womb the whole time, and now, in a matter of minutes, my life and my baby’s life were at stake. John looked at me desperately. He didn’t want me to take the risk, but he was also paralyzed by the information that we would have a baby if we didn’t proceed with the removal. But that’s when I simply begged the doctors to do everything they could to save my baby, even if it meant putting my own life on the line.

They had a tough decision to make, so they evaluated the situation and decided that it was necessary to remove the lipoma so that the fetus could grow normally, but that despite the risk, they would try to save the fetus during the surgery. I was relieved and, at the same time, terrified. John started to cry, and I cried with him. I didn’t know if this was a farewell or a celebration. Sincerely, I did not know.

That’s when they gave me general anesthesia because it was going to be a complicated surgery. Everything faded away, and I didn’t see anything else.

When I woke up hours later, I was confused and in pain. John then told me that, with skill and precision, they performed an extremely complex surgery and that they were able to safely remove the lipoma.

‘Oh my, my God, thank you,’ I said.

But it was too soon to say thank you because when I saw the expression on my husband’s face, my heart started beating faster, and I despaired again.

‘Honey, where is our baby?’ I asked, looking at my belly, which was completely empty.

But before he could respond, doctors came into the room, and finally, I heard the news I feared the most: the baby didn’t survive.

‘No, no!’ I cried inconsolably. I didn’t know how to move on after so much pain and suffering.

Once again, I felt like my world had crumbled before my eyes. All I wanted was to be a mother, and now that chance had been taken away from me a second time. What a deep and unbearable pain that was in my heart—a pain I had never felt before. I felt completely helpless. I wished I had the chance to hug and take care of my baby, but all I have left is an inexplicable pain and longing for someone I never even met.

It was very strange, sad, and confusing. I didn’t know what was going on. With each memory that came to my mind of something that didn’t happen, with each image of the baby’s room we had prepared, each time I tried to imagine his little face, the pain intensified even more. Everything reminded me of that loss, and I couldn’t control my emotions.

John and I cried a lot. We hugged, and then we cried again. At night, I couldn’t sleep well, I couldn’t concentrate on anything. All I wanted was for that pain to go away and for me to be able to go back to living a normal life. I was tired of everything. I was feeling pain, anger, frustration.

Over time, my husband tried to help me as best he could, but I felt so sad and shaken that nothing seemed to work. I looked at the sky several times and asked God, ‘Why me?’

How was it possible to move on after everything that had happened? John was my safe haven during that time. He supported me in everything I needed, even when I was so sad I didn’t even want to talk. He gave me space to cry, but he was always there, giving me the strength to carry on.

It was difficult, but I started to recover. I started doing things I liked. I got closer to friends and started looking to the future again. And it was in that future that I saw a ray of sunshine: I got pregnant again, and the joy I felt was indescribable.

I knew the fear was still there, but I was determined to be happy and give birth to my child in good health. During the whole pregnancy, John was always by my side, and we were very excited again. It was like part of my heart that had gone away with the loss of my first baby had come back to me.

And then I finally gave birth to our son, Jonathan. The emotion was indescribable. I was filled with fear and anxiety, but when I heard his cry for the first time, I knew it was all worth it. With him lying on my chest, John hugged me and said some words that, for a moment, I thought I had already heard them: ‘Now we are complete, love. We did it. Finally, we are a family.’

From that moment on, our life changed completely. Obviously, we’ve spent a lot of sleepless nights changing diapers and taking care of our son, but we’ve never been happier. I remember the conversations we had sitting in the living room with our baby in our arms. We talked about the future, the adventures we were going to have together, and the love we had for each other and our son.

Today, looking back, I see that all that pain and suffering was worth it. I learned that life is full of ups and downs, but that love always overcomes everything. I am so happy with my family and grateful to have such an amazing husband. Life can be unpredictable, but if we keep love and hope in our hearts, anything is possible.”