When the test lines appeared on the tiny plastic strip, two pink streaks curled into view like indifferent signatures. Positive.
I stared at them in silence. My lips moved, but I couldn’t speak. I was a month late, and yet the confirmation still hit me like a tidal wave breaking inside my chest. I looked around my small apartment — laundry half-folded on the chair, dishes from lunch crusting in the sink. It all suddenly felt very far away.
I was twenty-eight. Married for two years. We’d been trying for almost all of them. Each negative test had landed like a silent disappointment between me and Yusuf, my husband. But we met it with patience, with hope, with long sujood at night. I told myself, “Maybe next month.” Then, when next month failed — “Maybe there’s wisdom in the delay. Be patient.”
But when this month finally came, it felt different. I wasn’t excited. I was scared.
Because Yusuf had just lost his job. Our savings were cracking under rent and insurance. The fridge groaned from how little we fed it. How would we raise a baby now?
I didn’t tell him that afternoon. I couldn’t. He came home early after yet another interview that led nowhere, his shoulders sloped like melting snow. I heated leftover lentils, and we sat wordlessly on the carpet. The television flickered, un-watched.
That night, after he fell asleep, I went to the balcony. The October air was cool, bare trees reaching like thin arms into the sky. I whispered a dua into the dark: “Ya Allah, I have no strength but Yours. If this is a mercy, let me feel it. If it’s a test, help me through.”
But still, the fear remained.
I waited three days before telling him. He didn’t say much at first — just stared at the test, then at me, his face unreadable.
Then he let out a long, thin breath. “SubhanAllah,” he said quietly. “He gives... even when we feel we have nothing left.”
His words didn’t erase my anxiety, but they softened it. Like the way the sky lightens before dawn — not full light, but a promise of it.
We made wudu together that night and prayed two rak‘ahs, just the two of us. He placed his hands over his eyes in sujood longer than usual. I laid my forehead on the rug and cried without sound. Not sadness — something deeper. A surrender. I said nothing eloquent, just, “You know my fear. You know what I need. I trust You.”
Weeks passed. The nausea arrived like clockwork. Bills still came, and jobs didn’t. Yet something in me began to shift. Not relief — but stillness, like the surface of water settling after the rain.
One morning, I sat on the edge of our bed as the call to Fajr echoed softly from outside. My hands rested over my stomach. I didn’t know what the future held. We hadn’t solved everything — in fact, nothing at all — but I wasn’t angry at the delay anymore. Because maybe the delay was never denial. Maybe it was mercy — stretching time so that we wouldn’t drown in it.
Perhaps Allah had seen the nights we didn’t speak of — how we kept praying even when the words felt hollow — and answered quietly, in His timing, not ours.
It’s strange. I used to think sabr meant waiting without feeling anything. But now I know it means feeling everything — the panic, the doubts, the ache — and still turning toward Allah anyway.
Still standing to pray.
Still holding on.
Even while letting go.
---
References:
When the test lines appeared on the tiny plastic strip, two pink streaks curled into view like indifferent signatures. Positive.
I stared at them in silence. My lips moved, but I couldn’t speak. I was a month late, and yet the confirmation still hit me like a tidal wave breaking inside my chest. I looked around my small apartment — laundry half-folded on the chair, dishes from lunch crusting in the sink. It all suddenly felt very far away.
I was twenty-eight. Married for two years. We’d been trying for almost all of them. Each negative test had landed like a silent disappointment between me and Yusuf, my husband. But we met it with patience, with hope, with long sujood at night. I told myself, “Maybe next month.” Then, when next month failed — “Maybe there’s wisdom in the delay. Be patient.”
But when this month finally came, it felt different. I wasn’t excited. I was scared.
Because Yusuf had just lost his job. Our savings were cracking under rent and insurance. The fridge groaned from how little we fed it. How would we raise a baby now?
I didn’t tell him that afternoon. I couldn’t. He came home early after yet another interview that led nowhere, his shoulders sloped like melting snow. I heated leftover lentils, and we sat wordlessly on the carpet. The television flickered, un-watched.
That night, after he fell asleep, I went to the balcony. The October air was cool, bare trees reaching like thin arms into the sky. I whispered a dua into the dark: “Ya Allah, I have no strength but Yours. If this is a mercy, let me feel it. If it’s a test, help me through.”
But still, the fear remained.
I waited three days before telling him. He didn’t say much at first — just stared at the test, then at me, his face unreadable.
Then he let out a long, thin breath. “SubhanAllah,” he said quietly. “He gives... even when we feel we have nothing left.”
His words didn’t erase my anxiety, but they softened it. Like the way the sky lightens before dawn — not full light, but a promise of it.
We made wudu together that night and prayed two rak‘ahs, just the two of us. He placed his hands over his eyes in sujood longer than usual. I laid my forehead on the rug and cried without sound. Not sadness — something deeper. A surrender. I said nothing eloquent, just, “You know my fear. You know what I need. I trust You.”
Weeks passed. The nausea arrived like clockwork. Bills still came, and jobs didn’t. Yet something in me began to shift. Not relief — but stillness, like the surface of water settling after the rain.
One morning, I sat on the edge of our bed as the call to Fajr echoed softly from outside. My hands rested over my stomach. I didn’t know what the future held. We hadn’t solved everything — in fact, nothing at all — but I wasn’t angry at the delay anymore. Because maybe the delay was never denial. Maybe it was mercy — stretching time so that we wouldn’t drown in it.
Perhaps Allah had seen the nights we didn’t speak of — how we kept praying even when the words felt hollow — and answered quietly, in His timing, not ours.
It’s strange. I used to think sabr meant waiting without feeling anything. But now I know it means feeling everything — the panic, the doubts, the ache — and still turning toward Allah anyway.
Still standing to pray.
Still holding on.
Even while letting go.
---
References:
