I’m eight months pregnant.
That fact announces itself constantly—through the tight pull of my skin when I stand, the way my lower back aches by noon, the unmistakable thump of my daughter’s heel under my ribs when she decides she’s bored. It’s also written all over the photo my husband took of me earlier today: me sitting at the edge of a resort pool, sunlight catching on blue water, a black bandeau bikini stretched over a round, unapologetic belly. Sunglasses on, shoulders relaxed, one hand braced behind me, the other resting where she keeps reminding me she exists.
I look… happy.
When Ethan showed me the picture, I cried. Not the panicky kind. Not the grief kind. Just the quiet, stunned tears of someone realizing they’ve crossed a line they once thought was impossible.
Three years ago, this body didn’t exist.
Three years ago, I was a guy named Daniel, and pregnancy was an abstract concept that belonged to other people’s lives.
The lottery notices went out on a Tuesday.
I remember because Ethan and I were on the couch, half-watching a game neither of us cared about, when our phones chimed in perfect, awful unison.
We looked at each other.
“Don’t,” he said immediately.
“I haven’t said anything.”
“Don’t even joke.”
I unlocked my phone.
The message was clinical, polite in the way institutions are when they don’t want to admit they’re about to upend your life. Due to the ongoing population imbalance between female and male citizens. Due to the necessity of social stability. Due to the Transformation Act.
You have been selected.
My stomach dropped like I’d missed a step on the stairs.
Ethan swore. “Tell me it’s not—”
“It’s me,” I said.
The room went quiet, thick with the hum of the TV and the sound of my own pulse in my ears.
We’d talked about this before. Everyone had. Late-night hypotheticals, half-jokes with a hard edge underneath.
If one of us gets picked.
If it’s you or me.
What would we do?
Ethan grabbed my hands, like anchoring me to the couch would keep the world from shifting. “We made a pact.”
I laughed, shaky and disbelieving. “I know. I remember.”
If one of us was selected, we’d get married immediately. Married men—and fathers—were exempt. It was a loophole, a bureaucratic pressure valve the government had built in to keep the backlash manageable.
At the time, it had sounded absurd.
Now it sounded like a lifeline.
“You don’t have to,” I said, because I had to say it. “I don’t want you marrying me out of fear.”
Ethan looked at me like I was missing something obvious. “You’re my best friend. I’m not getting transformed because I hesitated.”
That earned a breathless laugh. “Wow. So romantic.”
“You love me.”
“I do.”
“Then shut up.”
We got married two weeks later.
No ceremony. No rings. Just a courthouse clerk who barely looked up as she stamped our forms.
“Congratulations,” she said, flatly.
Ethan squeezed my hand. “Guess we’re husbands now.”
“Guess so,” I said, and tried not to think too hard about what that word was about to mean.
The transformation happened a month after that.
They gave me counseling, medical briefings, a thick folder explaining what would change and what wouldn’t and what I would never get back. The night before, Ethan sat with me on the bed, our knees touching.
“You can still back out,” he said.
“No, I can’t,” I replied. “You know that.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “I just want you to know I’d still be here.”
“I don’t know who I’ll be,” I admitted.
“You’ll still be you,” he said.
He was right.
He was also wrong.
The procedure itself was painless. Advanced bioengineering, nanotech, hormone rewrites. I went under one way and woke up another.
“Can you sit up for me, ma’am?” the nurse said.
Ma’am.
I looked down at a body that was unmistakably mine and entirely unfamiliar—softer lines, different weight, a face in the mirror that looked like me through water.
Ethan came in as soon as they let him.
He stared, then laughed, relief and shock tangled together. “Oh my god. You’re… you’re cute.”
“Shut up,” I croaked.
He kissed my forehead anyway.
I chose a new name later. Danielle. Close enough to feel like a bridge instead of a cliff.
At first, the marriage was exactly what we’d said it would be: on paper.
We shared an apartment. Split bills. Slept in separate rooms. Learned new rhythms. I learned how the world looked at me now; Ethan learned how careful he thought he needed to be.
“You don’t have to tiptoe,” I told him one night.
“I know,” he said. “I just don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t.”
The line between us blurred slowly. Movie nights on the couch with my feet tucked under his thigh. Late conversations that drifted into sleep. His hand resting at my back like it belonged there.
One night, sitting across from me at the kitchen table, he said, “You know we don’t have to pretend forever.”
My heart stuttered. “What?”
“This,” he said, gesturing between us. “We can make it real. If you want.”
I didn’t answer right away. Then: “I do.”
The first time we slept together as husband and wife wasn’t dramatic or perfect. It was quiet. Careful. Intimate in a way that rewired something in my chest. We laughed at our own nerves, paused to check in, learned each other again.
Afterward, tangled together in the dark, Ethan laughed softly into my shoulder. “Well. That’s one way to consummate a bureaucratic loophole.”
I cried and laughed at the same time. “Shut up.”
That night didn’t just change our marriage.
It made it real.
A year ago, we decided to try for a baby.
No speeches. No big moment. Just us in bed, my hand on my stomach, his fingers laced through mine.
“Do you want this?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Do you?”
“More than anything.”
The positive test made my hands shake. Ethan hovered like he was afraid to breathe.
“That’s… that’s a yes, right?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, already crying.
He picked me up, spun once, then panicked and set me down. “Sorry—sorry—I forgot—”
I laughed until I had to sit.
Now, a year later, I’m eight months pregnant at a resort pool, the sun warm on my shoulders.
“Hold still,” Ethan says from behind the camera.
“I am holding still,” I laugh. “You’re the one moving.”
“I’m trying to get the light right.”
“The light is the sun.”
He hums, then clicks. “Got it.”
When I stand, carefully, he’s there immediately, offering his hand. I take it without thinking.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah. Just… full.”
“That tracks,” he grins.
Later, when I see the photo—my body round and strong and undeniably pregnant—I cry. Because I see not just who I am, but everything that led here.
Back in our room, Ethan wraps his arms around me from behind, chin on my shoulder, hands splayed gently over my belly.
“When I look at you,” he says quietly, “I don’t see the guy you were.”
“What do you see?” I ask.
“My wife,” he says. “And our daughter’s mom.”
I lean back into him, my hand covering his.
The lottery changed my body.
The law changed my life.
But love—that part was never forced.
I didn’t lose myself.
I found her.
And somewhere under my skin, my daughter kicks, like she agrees.
