“I'll do the test, wish me good luck.” A message popped out on the screen when I logged in MSN.

For a moment, I stared at it and got lost in words.

Finally I pulled myself together and replied: “ Don’t worry. It will be all right, it must be!” I must have said things like that a thousand times in the last few days. Now these words I wrote, though sincere enough, had the look of pale emptiness. But I didn’t know what else I could say or do to make Jia feel better.

There was a long blankness followed, and then Jia logged off.

Jia is an old friend, but we have kind of drifted apart over these days. She had been trying hard to conceive and had a real hard time of it. In the past three years, she almost tried everything. After I was pregnant, somehow it had built up an invisible wall between us. I tried carefully not to talk too much about my baby. But it’s difficult to walk the fine line between reminding her of her problems, and neglecting her by not sharing her with my joys.

Last month, when she told me that she got pregnant, I was truly happy for her. We went on and on about how exciting to be a mother over the phone with no slightest portent about the dramatic turn of the event that was about to occur.

About a week ago, a bad news came and ruined everything: the result of yan’s torch test was negative and some virus she carried might be passed to the unborn baby, and to the worse, there is a chance that it might cause grave deformity.

The doctor suggested Jia to take a high-risk test, which might cause miscarriage, to confirm if the baby is OK.

This shock nearly deprived me of speech. What a nightmare! I wanted to comfort Jia by assuring her that nothing was to be afraid of, but it is everything we would be afraid of. We both knew what it would mean to a mother-to-be.

A faint cold hand touched my heart. There came a flutter thought: “ Is this kind of punishment?” At this moment, I knew it was so cruel to think about something like that. But I couldn’t shake it off. Before this pregnancy, Jia gave up three babies for abortion. When we were young, so ruthless and carefree, raising a child seemed to be the last thing we wanted to do. We had mortgage to pay, we were still at the beginning of our career, our marriage has not stabled yet… In short, we were not ready. There were so many things we want to do, so many places we’d like to go, how could we be tied so early? I still remembered the third time Jia decided to take an abortion, some tried to persuade her to change her mind. “It’s too dangerous. You might never be able to have a child again.” said they. “That’s OK with me. I am not a mother type and I never want to have a child.” That’s Jia’s reply. The color ebbed out of her cheeks, but her look was determined. Several years later, my ears still ringed with her words, however, everything has changed.

I remembered with guilty that at that time I was the one who stood at her side. Back at that time, I didn’t want to have a child myself. I never had a way with kids and I had always been very uncomfortable around with them. After graduating from Normal University, I taught the first grade in elementary school---which I quit two months later. During my brief teaching career, I saw too many spoiled children and I never knew how to deal with them. I swore to myself that I would never have a child of my own. During the first several years after I married, my husband didn’t want a child too. But he was totally against abortion, so I was extremely careful. I guess I was lucky---I never had an unwanted pregnancy. Sometimes I can’t help but wondering, what would happen if I were not so lucky? Would I just like Jia to give up the God’s gift easily, then spend the rest of life to regret about it? Now looking at my son’s face, I realize there are so many things I should be thankful.