You kept the ultrasound photo.
Not for proof.
Not for anyone else.
But because it was them.

The first time you saw them.
The only time.
A blur of light,
a flicker that made your heart rearrange itself.

You folded it gently.
Tucked it away like a secret prayer.
Somewhere no one would find it—
not because you were ashamed,
but because you couldn’t bear
to hear them call it just a loss.

Because to you—
it was a goodbye.

That image held a future.
Not just cells,
but a soul you had already made room for.
You saw it.
You felt it.
Even if no one else did.

You were already imagining how they might laugh.
Whose eyes they’d have.
The way they’d kick at night
or curl into your chest when the world felt too loud.

You loved them instantly.
And then you lost them.

But that photo remains.
The only thing left that says:
They were here.
They mattered.
I loved them.

You don’t show it to people.
You don’t post it.
Because the world doesn’t grieve what it didn’t get to meet.

But you do.
In the quiet.
In the ache.
In the way your fingers trace the edges of that folded piece of paper
like it’s something holy.

Because it is.