Chapter 4
Author's Note: I apologize for Chapters 2 and 3 being so long. This one, by comparison, will be short and sweet :).
After some hard fertility struggles with Endometriosis, David and Cristina Marshall were about to give up on having a child of their own. Cristina's condition was painful, and a hysterectomy was the best way to put a stop to her suffering.
But the night before the hysterectomy, an angel had told them in a dream that they ought not to despair about the possibility of a family just yet. It was a reassuring dream – inspiring, almost.
Of course, people don't just obey random miraculous dreams, and David and Cristina didn't even remember what theirs contained. But they talked to one another when they woke up, and then they called the hospital to postpone Cristina's hysterectomy by a few months. Even though Endometriosis was a bitch, Cristina figured she could stand to wait for a few more months. It just felt right.
And then, a couple of months later, they discovered that Cristina was pregnant – PREGNANT! It'd seemed impossible, but it was true and it was an absolute miracle. The hysterectomy was cancelled and David and Cristina set about the business of welcoming their little one to the world.
9 months after the miraculous dream, a beautiful baby girl was born. As David was white and Cristina was Black, the girl was a beautiful creature of mixed race, who bore a mixture of her parents' features. But the one thing David and Cristina did not recognize was her eye color. She had these piercing, bright-gray eyes that seemed to gaze into her parents' very souls – even though newborns weren't even supposed to be coherent yet.
"What do you want to call her?" asked David.
"How about Hope?" asked Cristina. "Here were, hopeless that we wouldn't get to start a family, and then she came along and gave us hope."
"Hope's a great name, but I thought we were also considering Anastasia for a baby girl?" asked David.
"Well, how about we make Anastasia her middle name? What do you think of that, Hope Anastasia Marshall?" asked Cristina.
The baby seemed happy in her arms, so Cristina took that as a sign of approval.
A few hours later, Hope was getting a check-up while David stayed and kept Cristina company. "You know what I realized?" he asked. "Now that the birth certificate designates her as Hope Anastasia Marshall… her initials are HAM."
"Do you care?" laughed Cristina.
"Nah," said David. "I just really hope she doesn't turn into the kind of person who monograms their initials on things, that's all."
And all was well with the world.