Chapter 6 - David’s Final Attempt to Destroy Me
Grace drove me to the hospital while I called Doctor Sanz.
The contractions came faster than expected.
Each one began as pressure in my lower back, then tightened around my entire body until I could barely speak.
“Breathe,” Grace said, gripping the steering wheel. “We’re almost there.”
“I am breathing.”
“You’re holding your breath.”
“I’m trying not to scream.”
“You can scream.”
“No.”
Another contraction struck.
I screamed.
At the hospital entrance, a team was waiting with a wheelchair. Everything happened in bright fragments—fluorescent lights, forms, nurses asking questions, monitors strapped around my abdomen.
Two heartbeats filled the room.
Fast but steady.
Doctor Sanz arrived with the obstetric team.
“Baby A is still head down,” he said. “Baby B is transverse. We’ll monitor closely, but a cesarean delivery may be safest.”
“Are they all right?”
“They’re premature, but their heart rates are reassuring.”
Grace stood beside me holding my hand.
Then a nurse entered.
“Ms. Valenzuela, your husband is downstairs.”
“Estranged husband,” I managed.
“He says he has legal rights as the father.”
Elena had warned me this might happen.
“Call my attorney.”
“We already did,” Grace said. “She’s on her way.”
David began sending messages.
I deserve to be there.
Those are my children.
Don’t punish them because you hate me.
I turned the phone face down.
The contractions intensified.
Within an hour, the medical team recommended surgery.
Baby B’s heart rate had begun fluctuating.
Fear swallowed everything else.
I signed the consent forms with shaking hands.
As they prepared me, Elena arrived in the hallway.
“You focus on the babies,” she said. “I’ll handle David.”
“What is he doing?”
“He brought an emergency petition requesting access.”
“Now?”
“He claims you’re emotionally unstable and may prevent necessary care.”
“He’s using my labor against me.”
“He’s trying. He will not succeed.”
“What recordings does he have?”
“We’ll deal with that later.”
“I cried. I shouted at him.”
“Crying while being betrayed does not make you unfit.”
“What if he edited them?”
“Then the originals will matter.”
A nurse interrupted.
“We need to go.”
The operating room was cold.
Grace could not initially enter because she was not legally designated as my medical support person, but after a hurried authorization and approval from the team, she joined me wearing blue surgical clothing.
The spinal anesthesia made my lower body numb.
A curtain blocked my view.
I stared at the ceiling while Doctor Sanz spoke calmly from the other side.
“You’ll feel pressure, but not pain.”
I nodded.
Grace pressed her forehead against mine.
“You’re not alone.”
For months, I had feared I would give birth surrounded by the ruins of my marriage.
But in that moment, I understood family did not always arrive in the form expected.
Sometimes it was the employee who became a friend.
The attorney who answered at midnight.
The doctor who defended a patient when silence would have been easier.
And the two children fighting to enter the world.
Pressure pulled through my body.
Then a cry filled the room.
High, sharp, and alive.
“Baby A,” someone announced. “A girl.”
Tears streamed into my hair.
A few moments later, the room became tense.
The medical team spoke in clipped phrases.
I could not see what was happening.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Baby B needs assistance,” Doctor Sanz said. “Stay with us.”
The seconds stretched endlessly.
Then another cry sounded.
Weaker.
But present.
“A boy,” the nurse said.
I sobbed with relief.
They brought my daughter close first, wrapped in a small blanket. Her face was red, her eyes squeezed shut.
“Hello,” I whispered. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
My son required help breathing and was taken to the neonatal unit.
I saw him only briefly—a tiny face beneath a knitted cap—before the team carried him away.
The next hours blurred.
I named my daughter Elena, after my mother, not my attorney, though Attorney Elena cried when she heard it.
My son became Mateo, the name my father had once suggested.
Both babies were stable.
Mateo needed respiratory support, but the doctors were optimistic.
David was not allowed into the neonatal unit immediately because of the temporary court order and the hospital’s security concerns.
He waited downstairs for hours.
The following morning, Elena entered my room holding her laptop.
“You need to see something before it spreads further.”
David had released one of the recordings.
In the audio, I was crying and shouting, “I hate you. I never want you near this baby.”
The recording ended there.
I remembered the argument.
It had happened after I learned he had called my clients. My complete sentence had been:
“I hate what you’ve become. I never want you near this baby while you’re using the pregnancy to threaten me.”
He had cut the recording.
A statement from his attorney claimed I had displayed “extreme hostility” and intended to alienate the children from their father.
Online comments multiplied.
Some supported me.
Others asked why I was preventing a father from meeting his newborn twins.
I felt the walls closing in.
“I can’t fight this from a hospital bed.”
“You don’t have to,” Elena said.
“What if people believe him again?”
“Then they’ll be wrong again.”
“He knows exactly when I’m weakest.”
“Yes. That’s why he released it today.”
I looked toward the bassinet where my daughter slept.
“Do we have the full recording?”
“Not yet.”
“Then he can say whatever he wants.”
A knock came at the door.
Paola entered with a hospital security officer.
She looked frightened.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I have the originals.”
She held up a small external drive.
“David stored recordings in a shared cloud account. I downloaded them before he removed my access.”
Elena stood.
“Have you listened to them?”
“Yes.”
“Are they complete?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you helping now?”
Paola looked at my daughter.
“Because he asked me to edit them.”
The room went silent.
“He contacted you after firing you?”
“He said he would withdraw the accusations against me if I helped make you look dangerous.”
“Did you agree?”
“I pretended to.”
She gave the drive to Elena.
“There are also recordings of him planning the property demand, discussing the media leak, and saying he didn’t care whether the baby was his as long as you signed.”
My stomach turned.
Elena immediately called her office.
Within hours, the complete recording was provided to the court, along with metadata showing David’s version had been edited.
The other files were even more damaging.
In one, David told Paola:
“If Lorena believes everyone thinks she cheated, she’ll sign anything.”
In another, he said:
“The child is probably mine, but by the time she proves it, the house will be transferred.”
The emergency petition collapsed.
The judge denied David immediate access and ordered all future contact supervised pending a full evaluation.
She also warned his attorney that manipulated evidence could result in sanctions.
By evening, several news outlets corrected their stories.
David’s company board placed him on administrative leave.
Two lenders began investigating the hidden debts.
His strategy had finally turned against him.
Still, he remained the biological father of my children.
That truth could not be erased by his conduct.
Three days after the birth, he was permitted a brief supervised visit through the neonatal unit’s observation window.
I watched from my wheelchair as he saw the twins for the first time.
Elena slept in a clear bassinet.
Mateo lay beneath soft lights with a breathing tube.
David placed one hand against the glass.
His shoulders shook.
For a moment, I saw the man I once believed he was.
Then he turned toward me.
“I’m sorry.”
The words were barely audible.
I did not respond.
“I know sorry isn’t enough.”
“No,” I said. “It isn’t.”
“Are they healthy?”
“Mateo needs help breathing. Elena is doing well.”
“Can I hold them?”
“Not today.”
He nodded, tears running down his face.
“I’ll do anything.”
I looked at him carefully.
“Then stop fighting for control and start accepting consequences.”
“I want to be their father.”
“You must first become someone who is safe for them.”
He lowered his eyes.
For the first time, he did not blame Paola.
He did not blame stress.
He did not blame me.
“I understand,” he whispered.
I hoped he did.
But hope was no longer the same as trust.
Mateo remained in the hospital for three weeks.
Each day, I sat beside him and placed one finger inside his tiny hand.
Each day, he grew stronger.
And when he finally breathed without assistance, I knew we had reached the beginning of a new life.
The divorce was still ahead.
The custody case was unresolved.
My company was recovering, but the future remained uncertain.
Yet as I held both babies together for the first time, I realized David had failed in the one thing he wanted most.
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He had tried to make me powerless.
Instead, he had shown me exactly how powerful I could become.
