After two and a half months of therapy, it finally seemed like I was getting somewhere. It stopped looking like a waste of time to me.

Therapy gave me a chance to get so many things off my chest and when I had to talk about my relationship with my husband and how my issues affected it, I opened up to the therapist on how I really felt about my husband. Avery was the only one that I told I was in love with Keith. When I told the therapist, she had said You can't truly love someone else if you don't love yourself.

Those words had made me frown. I disagreed with her and I told her I did love myself. Her words had been if you did love yourself, you wouldn't need anyone to tell you that you are beautiful the way you are. And that's the very first step to getting better, accepting yourself for who you are and loving yourself the way you are.

I thought so hard about what she said and I realized it was true. I didn't love myself. I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror without hating what I saw in there. I had called myself a failure so many times because I had tried so hard a number of times to work on my weight and failed woefully. I saw myself as that child that ruined everyone's lives because my mum hadn't been ready when I came and I was that love child that had ruined things between my father and Amanda. And when I realized that I really didn't love myself, I had cried so much and then decided to work on it. I figured that if I love myself, I will be happier and stronger, that I won't let what people say about me get to me. So my motto became Be me and Do Me.

Self reflection and meditating every morning just to find my inner me became an everyday thing. I found out that deep down, I resented my parents for being the way they had been with me. I figured that if things had been different when I was younger, I would have grown to be a better person. So I worked on actually forgiving them and then I decided within me to not let that shape who I was anymore.

I started looking at myself in the mirror everyday morning and night after showering. My mantra became "You are beautiful the way you are. You don't need to change yourself, the world should change it's heart." My favourite song became Alessia Cara's No Scars To Your Beautiful. I became more positive. I wanted to be a woman my baby would be proud of calling his mother, I wanted to become my baby's role model. I spent more time around positive people, both online and in the real world.

All that and more made me make peace with who I am. I stopped seeing myself as a failure. So what if I'm fat? It wasn't affecting anyone except me and it wasn't even affecting me at all. So what if Amanda didn't like me? You can't be liked by everyone no matter how good you are. The world will always have something to say. I stopped seeing myself as a failure. So what if I failed to lose weight? So what if I failed to meet up to the world's standard of beauty. What about my other successes? All my final results had come out as distinctions, including the one that made me cry that night. I had had mastered the art of cooking and keeping a home. I had a best friend that loved me for who I am. I realized that all that mattered was how I saw myself and not how others saw me.

I began seeing myself as a made woman, a mother to be, a veterinary doctor to be and a woman that graduated from the University with summa cum laude with a GPA of 3.92 despite the ups and downs I faced throughout those years. I accepted the fact that I was getting a divorce and was going to raise my baby on my own.

And on the last day of my session, Suzanne, my therapist had said "You have come a long way Danica" and I gave her a real smile.

"I have, and I am really thankful for all you've done for me. I am happier than I've ever been and I'm practically buzzing with positivity. I'm going for my checkup today and I'll want to find out if I'm having a boy or a girl and that is one of the things that I'm very happy about right now."

"That's really good. And what of your relationship with your husband? Has it improved?" she asked and I could not stop the small sad smile that spread on my face as u shook my head.

"No. I love Keith with all my heart but Keith...doesn't know how to forgive people, and I can't do anything to change that."

"What about the baby? What will happen after the divorce? Or what if he decides to stay together for the baby's sake?"

"Well he insisted on being in the baby's life. So we will work out the visitation periods. We are going to settle things amicably between us. And for the second question, no. I'm done settling for things especially when it comes to matters of the heart. I'm not settling for someone that doesn't really like me anymore for the baby. I believe it's better to raise my baby alone than in a family where the father can't forgive the mother for one mistake."

She nodded and soon, we concluded and I left her office feeling like a new person. Therapy had been a good idea and for that I was thankful to Avery and Keith for insisting I get it. I never would have done it on my own.

When I pressed the power button to start the engine, I felt my baby move. It had become a usual occurrence over the week and I teared up when I remembered that Keith had never actually felt the baby move. Our relationship over the past two months had been so weird. Even though he was friendly, he was still distant. He had never been to any prenatal visit with me even though he asked how it was. He ensured I went for all my appointments, he congratulated me when my results came out but that was just about it. It hurt because I missed him.

Just then my phone vibrated and I saw that I had five missed calls and a new message. Removing the phone from vibration mode, I checked the call log and the missed calls were from Keith and so was the message.

Hey. Where [email protected]? Bn calling u. Call me bk whn u ds. 😺

I smiled a little when I saw the emoji. He loved using emojis and his best was the poo emoji. I called him back.

"Hey." he said from the other end.

"Hi." I replied and then he didn't say anything for a moment. All we did was listen to each other breath before he continued.

"So... I was wondering if uhmm... May I come with you today for the appointment? I just remembered you left a sticky note on my door before leaving in the morning."

I nodded before remembering he couldn't see me, so I just said yes. I had left a sticky note on his door to let him know I was going for my first ultrasound and was going to find out the sex of our baby on that day. I got tired of referring to the baby as "he"because I wondered what if I am having a girl am shave been calling her a he all along?

"Have you had lunch?"

"No. Not yet. I just left Suzanne's office when your message came in."

"Is there anything you want in particular so I'll get it on the way. I'll tell Edgar to take the car home after dropping me off while we go with yours."

"Pizza...half pepperoni half pineapples and a bottle of ice water and 50cl of Coca-Cola...oh and if you pass a Chinese restaurant on your way, please get their noodles for me but let it be extra extra spicy."

"Well... That's a lot of food though. Okay then. See you in a bit." and then he disconnected. Keith was determined to keep the relationship between us friendly. He didn't want our baby to think the parents hate each other and he didn't want there to be any tension between us in future. I was at least happy about that because I for one didn't want awkward visitation days.

He got there about 20 minutes later with the food which I shamelessly wolfed down like a hungry beast, noodles first and some slices of the pizza, leaving the rest for later.

"Are you worried? This is your first ultrasound." he said and I swallowed the pizza in my mouth to answer while shaking my head.

"No. Not anymore. We will know if we're having a boy or a girl. Nothing like worry or fear of the unknown will dampen my joy right now. Besides, I believe everything is fine." and with that, he nodded. I had been too scared to do an ultrasound because I was worried that they'd discover that something might be wrong with the baby. It was unreasonable because it was the only way to know if something was actually wrong with the baby but I still didn't have the heart to know. But after everything with my therapist, the fear dissipated.

In the waiting room, while flipping through the magazine and waiting for my turn, the woman beside me asked "Sorry. Don't mean to be rude, just trying to make conversation. How far along are you?"

"19 weeks today. You?"

"28 weeks." And so a conversation ensued between us. Her name was April and that was her second pregnancy. She was really friendly and nice, so we exchanged contacts and continued talking until I was called in. Saying bye to her and telling her I'll chat her up, Keith and I went in and I did everything I was told to do while he sat down and looked at the pictures hanging on the wall of women in different stages of pregnancy.

The sonographer came in, smiles and all and then warned me before she put the cold gel on my belly and then let Keith and I know that we could see everything on the TV screen before us. It wasn't as weird as I expected it to be. I looked at my stomach and almost laughed at the fact that it looked like my usual food baby except that it was firmer and a bit bigger because instead of food, I actually did have a really baby growing in there.

When a picture came up on the screen, I looked away and focused on Keith's face instead as he looked at the screen. Apparently I was still just a bit scared of seeing something wrong.

"There they are." she said and it took everything in me to not look at the screen. It didn't occur to Keith and I that she said they. All I wanted was for her to say everything looked fine before looking. Keith's brows furrowed in confusion and then he said "Oh my God the baby has two heads."

My eyes snapped back to the screen and just before I could panic, the sonographer replied "No Sir. You're expecting twins and everything looks normal to me."

At that moment, I lost the ability to talk. It was as if every other person in the room disappeared. It was just me and the screen as I really looked at it. Twins. I felt tears well up in my eyes.

"Can we—" I started but stopped to clear my throat that was clogged with emotions. "—We want to know the sex."

"Boys." she replied after a while. Everything else passed by like a movie. When she finished up, she left and not long after that the doctor came in. Keith even listened to the doctor more than I did. All I heard her say was No infections, nothing to worry about. I was in a world of my own.

Twin boys and everything is fine with them.

That night, I called my dad to let him know and when I slipped into my bed and pushed the need to go to Keith's room down the hall to the back of my mind and focused on the important things, all I could think of was how everything was looking up and how lucky I was and that made me so happy.