The birth of your child is the most magical time of your life. Mine wasn’t magical, but it certainly was memorable.

Here’s my birth story:

Now, a disclaimer — my mother-in-law, Sandra, hates me. She’s hated me since the day Levi introduced me to her.

Anyway, throughout my pregnancy, she hung around making me smoothies and ensuring I ate properly.

“Just listen to me, Elle,” she would say. “This baby needs to be healthy.”

Fast track to the day my son, Wyatt, was born.

I was in labor, and she didn’t let my husband stay by my side. She said he needed to sit in the waiting room with her while I was inside.

But then, sneaky as she was, she waited until I passed out after giving birth to sneak into the room to my newborn.

She was sitting next to the baby’s bassinet and holding his little first when I eventually came to. He was usually quiet for a newborn. When my eyes finally adjusted to the light, I noticed Levi in the room.

I tried to sit up, to reach out to get the baby, but Levi held his arm out.

“You better lie down again,” he said. “You just gave birth. Rest.”

Then, he handed me the newspaper that he had been reading.

“Read,” he said.

I was shocked.

My back still ached from giving birth, so I was okay with laying still. But I was confused about being instructed to sit there.

I wanted to pick up my baby and hold him.

Then, Levi handed me a form. It was a legal form rejecting a child at birth, filled out and signed.

Dread washed over me.

“What is this?” I managed to stammer.

Levi’s eyes searched mine for a moment. He looked regretful and helpless and tried to explain, but Sandra cut him off with a triumphant, cold gaze.

“It’s for the best, Elle,” Sandra said. “You’re not fit to be a mother. I’ve seen it since day one. You are not capable of nurturing a child.”

The room spun. I couldn’t believe it. My husband and his mother had conspired to take my baby away. She was trying to take legal action against me — to take my baby away and to raise him as her own.

“No,” I said. Despite the postpartum pain, I found a strength I didn’t know I had. I got up, my legs dangling off the side of the bed.

“This is not happening,” I said. “You have no right to take my child away. Levi, think about this.”

My husband looked torn, but his mother was relentless.

“Think about the baby’s future. With you, what kind of life will he have? Levi will leave you and stay with me. We will raise this child together.”

Then, I realized that this was her plan all along. Sandra wanted to undermine me. She tried to make me look incapable of being a mother.

But I wasn’t going to let her win.

“I am his mother,” I declared, my voice steady. “And I will fight for him with everything I have.”

Then, my parents walked in, and we took immediate legal action — making sure that everything was done before we left the hospital. There was no way that my child was going to be separated from me.

The court dismissed the document, citing coercion and a lack of evidence. Sandra slandered me, and she had no proof to back up her claims about me being an unfit mother.

I was grateful that the hospital’s legal team was there and helped me with the entire situation.

My mother-in-law, defeated, stepped back.

As my mother packed my belongings, ready to take Wyatt and me back to her place, I turned to my husband.

“It’s her or me,” I said, my voice steady. “You need to choose. Your son and I will be at my parents’ house. You decide.”

Then, things went south. Levi chose his mother, and I realized I couldn’t live in the shadow of a woman who saw me as an intruder in her son’s life.

So, I filed for divorce.

Levi tried to take me for everything I had, all my assets and savings. But our prenup was iron-tight and saved me. To retaliate, Levi challenged me for custody of Wyatt, but I won that, too, because the legal action that his mother tried to take was proof that Wyatt was safer with me.

It’s a few years later, and Wyatt is growing beautifully. He’s a happy and artistic boy and loves the family he has. Sometimes, I feel bad that Levi isn’t featured in his life. But I know that my child is better off without him and Sandra.

The scar of that betrayal remains deep within me, a reminder of a time when I had to choose between my dignity and a love overshadowed by control.

But in the remnants of that pain, I find the strength of a mother who stood up for her child and herself.

Now, I’m sitting here and watching my child play with Playdough, and I know that everything that led to this moment was worth it.

But still, was I wrong in asking Levi to make a choice?

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