I take a deep breath and turn to my sister. I have to make things right, but my heart pounds as I say what I should have said sixteen years ago. “But she’s not your child. She’s mine.”

My adoring husband Reid squeezes my hand in delight as we gaze at the grey and white ultrasound images, tears in his eyes. Finally, we are going to have our perfect family. But my husband doesn’t know this isn’t my first baby.

As a teenager, I was forced to give my baby to my older sister. I desperately wanted to care for her myself, but our mother said I was too young. My sister couldn’t have children of her own, and I was told it was for the best. But as I watched my sister over the years, brushing Carley’s hair and tucking her into bed with a kiss, I wanted to cry out: I am her mother.

Now I have a new life growing inside me, I realize just how much I had to give up. As I look ahead to my baby’s arrival, I have an impossible choice to make. Do I tell my first child the truth of what really happened all those years ago? Or will telling her destroy our family forever?