The hospital corridor during the rainy season is always damp and cold.
The kind of cold that seeps up from the wet tiles, into the bones, into the heart of a pregnant woman holding her feverish child in the middle of the night.
When I became pregnant with my second baby, our first was still not even two. It wasn’t something we planned — just something that happened. But the moment I saw those two pink lines, I felt genuine happiness. A child coming into our lives is a blessing – I believed that deeply.
My first pregnancy ended in an emergency C-section, and the fear of surgery still sits in me.
With this second pregnancy, my body was weaker, so I kept telling myself: be careful, stay calm, protect the baby. I quit my job, stayed home to look after my first child, cooked for my husband, cleaned, bought groceries nearly every responsibility fell on me. My husband was “busy,” always. Leaving early, returning late, sometimes not coming home at all, saying, “I have a meeting… I have work dinners… client gatherings…”
I didn’t question much. Because I was exhausted. And because I trusted him. I believed it was normal for a man to have work outside, to socialize. I believed him — until the night everything unraveled, just like our daughter’s sudden fever.
That night, it was pouring.
Out of nowhere, my little one burned with fever and began to convulse slightly. Panic washed over me. I called my husband, but he didn’t pick up. I quickly threw on a raincoat, grabbed my child, and rushed to find a taxi. My belly felt tight and heavy, but I held my daughter close and tried to soothe her as we reached the hospital.
The doctor admitted her immediately. After medication, her fever slowly dropped, but they told me to stay for observation. My clothes were soaked, my hair plastered to my face, my hands trembling from fear. I sat there on the cold plastic chair, holding my sleeping child, and texted my husband:
“We’re at X hospital. Our daughter has a high fever. If you see this, please come.”
The message showed Seen.
But there was no reply.
I waited one hour. Then two. At some point, exhaustion pulled me into brief sleep.
I woke when I heard hurried footsteps and crying in the corridor. A nurse was pushing a stretcher. A man followed — carrying a child. I instinctively lifted my head — and it felt like something seized my chest.
It was my husband. Wearing the same blue shirt he left home in. His face was worried. He was talking quickly to the nurse.
And beside him… a young woman — about twenty, dyed hair, crying hard.
I called him the way I always did, softly:
“Honey…”
He saw me.
Our eyes met.
And he looked away.
He walked right past me. Right past the wife who had been calling him. Past the child who was his. He didn’t stop. He didn’t explain. Not one word.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t collapse.
I just felt cold. Not the cold of the rain outside — but the cold that comes when love di:es.
Hours later, he came to me.
— “Honey… I… please… I don’t know what to say…”
I stayed silent. He tried again, but there was nothing left to say. His silence confirmed everything: He had another woman. He had another child. And he had been choosing them over us.
I stood up, my daughter in my arms, and looked into the eyes of the man who once promised to walk through life with me.
“Tomorrow, I will go to my mother’s house. I will give birth there. After that… we will handle things step by step.”
He reached out to hold my hand. I pulled away.
When I arrived at my mother’s house, I collapsed at the doorway. She held me, asked no questions, only whispered:
“First, give birth safely. Everything else we will face later.”
I gave birth to a healthy baby boy. When I held him, I remembered: I still have purpose. I still have strength.
My husband came to visit, but I refused to let him in the room. Not out of anger — but because I could not forget what I saw.
The sight of him carrying another child while I stood there — heavily pregnant, soaking wet, holding our sick daughter.
I don’t know yet what decision I will make for the future.
But I know this: From that night on, I am no longer the woman who gives all of herself while expecting so little. I no longer put my entire world into someone who never deserved it.
I lost my trust. But I found myself.
