Chapter 3
The dispatcher stayed calm.
Madison tried to answer every question.
How far apart are the contractions?
Is there bleeding?
Can you feel the baby moving?
That question broke her.
Because for the last hour, the strong little kicks she knew so well had faded into almost nothing.
The ambulance arrived nine minutes later.
To Madison, it felt like nine years.
Two paramedics found her on the kitchen floor.
One foot was cut by glass.
Her face was wet with tears.
She was still holding her stomach and whispering, “Please, baby, please.”
They lifted her carefully.
One of them looked at the empty driveway.
“Is anyone coming with you?”
Madison closed her eyes.
“No.”
At the hospital, everything moved fast.
Too fast.
Nurses rushed her into a room.
A monitor was strapped around her belly.
The baby’s heartbeat came through in uneven dips that made the nurse’s face change.
Madison noticed.
Mothers notice everything.
“What is it?” she asked.
The nurse squeezed her hand.
“We’re going to take good care of you.”
That was not an answer.
A doctor came in less than a minute later.
Then another.
Words moved around Madison like storm sirens.
Fetal distress.
Emergency delivery.
Possible cord compression.
Operating room.
Madison turned her head toward the empty chair beside her bed.
The chair where Ethan should have been.
She called him.
Once.
Twice.
Five times.
No answer.
She texted him with shaking fingers.
Hospital. Emergency. Baby in danger. Please come.
The message showed delivered.
Not read.
A nurse leaned close.
“Madison, we need to move now.”
Madison grabbed her wrist.
“My husband isn’t here.”
The nurse’s eyes softened.
“I know. But your baby is.”
That sentence held her together.
May you like
Barely.
👉 As they rushed Madison toward surgery, the one person who should have been beside her still had not even read her message.
