When I finally woke up at the hospital after over 24 hours, the first person I saw was my husband. He started crying and told me there were complications, and that they needed to deliver the babies as soon as possible. But sadly, one of them didn’t make it. “But Caleb is still there,” he said, and I knew he already decided on the name.
I was in pain, both physically and mentally. I couldn’t get over the fact that one of my babies was gone. No one warned me of that possibility because every doctor assured me my pregnancy was perfect.
Ryan was there 24/7. He brought flowers, helped me eat, and never left my room. The nurses were smitten with him, telling me over and over again how lucky I was to have him.
Well, except for a nurse called Diana. And older woman with gray hair. Because of some reason, Ryan would always leave the room when she was around and avoided eye contact with her. It was rather strange, because he loved chatting with the rest of them.
Whenever I asked to see my medical files or tried to understand what went wrong during the emergency, Ryan would shut it down, telling me to just focus on recovering.
Diana brought Caleb into my room that morning. She smiled at Ryan, but positioned herself so he couldn’t see her face. Then she told me to smile and act normal and said she’d just sent a video to my phone. She told me Ryan had been pacing outside the operating room saying things he shouldn’t have, and urged me to watch it before believing a word from him.
As soon as Ryan left to get coffee, I pulled out my phone. The video was only 27 seconds long. It showed Ryan pacing outside the OR with his phone to his ear. Diana had caught him saying he told the doctors to skip the extra intervention for the second baby, because one was enough.
Suddenly, all the odd things that had happened over the past nine months made perfect sense: the phone calls to the house from the garage, the way he felt about the name ‘Noah,’ the strange calmness when he called 911. He wasn’t in shock; he had been planning this all along.
Diana came back into the room after a few minutes. She said that while I was unconscious, Ryan had signed a document refusing the procedure for the second baby. She offered to give her testimony, but told me that since he had the power of medical proxy while the procedure took place, we needed the actual signed document in order to have a case against him.
When I attempted to get my own consent records from the administrator, she informed me that my chart had been sealed internally and would take days to be processed. Knowing anger wasn’t going to solve anything, I called my sister, Rachel, and asked her to come immediately. In no time, she was at the hospital together with Marcus, our family lawyer.
Marcus went straight to work to revoke Ryan’s proxy once we saw the video and the letter Diana had written. When Ryan came walking back into the room, he stopped dead in his tracks when he realized there was an attorney there. I played the audio clip in front of him.
He got very scared and tried to justify everything by saying that it would have been twins that would ruin us and he was protecting our family. I told him I was going to revoke his proxy rights, file for divorce, and take him to court for all that he did to our son Noah. He got down on his knees pleading, but staring at him made me feel empty inside. The security men escorted him out.
After six months, our divorce became official. Ryan had lost his standing in every way and had been sued for what he did to our son. I planted a baby dogwood tree for our son in the backyard. We could see it from both my room and Caleb’s.
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Bored Daddy
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