Our whole world was waiting to see our child, and this is what they’d be greeted with?

For years, I’d been the woman without any children.

Now I was the woman who had a child with a cleft lip.

But for at least one day, I didn’t want to feel different.

“Please mention the cleft,” I asked the relatives who were making calls about the bris.

I walked into the simchah hall, beaming as I pushed my baby bundled in the stroller, and smiled at the people who’d gathered. Perhaps because of my family’s preparation, our guests smiled back and didn’t mention the news.

I’m sure there were people speaking in hushed tones in the corners of the hall, but none of the whispers reached far enough to spoil my own simchah. I wasn’t the woman with no children or the mom of a child with a cleft. Today, I was just the baalas simchah welcoming guests to her celebration.

And, just like that, after ten long years of infertility, our Akiva was entered into the bris of Avraham Avinu. For one day, we were a normal, happy family, whose son had just become the newest link in the long chain that is the Jewish nation. I held on to the glow for as long as possible, knowing that the high would eventually ebb.