Chapter 3

When I regained consciousness, the blinding glare of surgical lights was shining right in my face.

The two strangers had brought me to a local community hospital.

What followed were hours of agonizing contractions and tearing pain.

I lay alone on the delivery bed with no family by my side, gripping the cold metal bed rails as I gritted my teeth through wave after wave of excruciating agony.

Just as I felt I had exhausted the very last ounce of my strength, I finally heard the nurse’s voice: "The baby is out."

Accompanied by a cry as faint as a kitten's, the doctor cut the umbilical cord.

My body instantly went limp against the sweat-soaked sheets, and tears flowed uncontrollably from my eyes.

Thank God. We made it through.

I took deep, continuous breaths, believing that the nightmare brought on by the violent storm was finally over, and that my baby and I were safe.

However, that brief joy lasted only a dozen minutes.

Before I even had the chance to hold my newborn child, the attending doctor pushed the door open and walked in.

His face was incredibly grim, devoid of any of the joy that usually accompanied a new birth.

"Doctor, where is my baby?" I asked, propping myself up on my arms.

The doctor quickly walked to my bedside and placed a firm hand on my shoulder. "You need to stay calm and listen to me. While the baby has been delivered, because of the premature birth and the severe impact from your fall, he is extremely weak. He cannot breathe on his own right now."

A sharp ringing echoed in my head. "Then put him on a ventilator, put him in an incubator..."

"We are just a basic community clinic; we don't have any neonatal intensive care equipment," the doctor spoke rapidly. "He needs to be transferred to the top-tier children's hospital downtown immediately. We just contacted their ambulance, but the entire city's traffic is paralyzed. The ambulance is stuck miles away and won't make it here anytime soon."

Through the half-open door, I looked into the resuscitation room outside, where a nurse was struggling to pump a manual resuscitator over my baby's face.

Suddenly, I remembered an emergency protocol I had come across while designing medical devices. "A helicopter... an emergency medevac helicopter! If we dispatch one, it can fly downtown in minutes."

Dispatching a medical helicopter not only required extremely high clearance and connections, but it also required a massive upfront transfer fee to be confirmed on the spot.

All my credit cards lay frozen; my only hope was Alexander.

Trembling, I grabbed the phone the nurse had just wiped dry for me and dialed his number without a second thought.

The call connected a few seconds later, but the voice that answered was Victoria's.

I immediately explained that the baby's life was hanging by a thread and demanded she hand the phone to Alexander at once.

Over the line, I heard the click-clack of high heels walking away, and the background noise slowly faded into absolute silence as Victoria stepped into an empty, soundproof corridor.

After listening to me cry and beg for the transfer fees and the helicopter, she deliberately kept the phone away from Alexander and let out a vicious, chilling sneer.

"Irene, that baby of yours should have died a long time ago." Her voice was kept low, but every word was painfully clear. "The fact that it survived in your belly for this long is more than that bastard deserves."

She paused, then continued with utter contempt, "Alexander doesn't love you at all. Why are you so utterly oblivious? You should have packed your bags and gotten the hell out of our lives a long time ago."

Under normal circumstances, I would never let her humiliate me like this.

But looking through the crack in the door at that tiny chest barely moving, I had no time to feel hurt by her venom.

I gripped the phone tightly, swallowing every ounce of my pride, and begged frantically over and over. "I don't care how you insult me, Victoria. Please, I'm begging you, just give the phone to Alexander! Even if I have to work odd jobs, I will pay him back every single cent for the medevac. I just need you to pay right now to save his life!"

Right as I was pleading for my child’s life, the sound of a door opening echoed in the background, followed by Alexander's approaching footsteps.

He asked Victoria who she was talking to and what was going on.

Just a second ago, Victoria was full of pure malice; now, she switched faces instantly. She put on a tone of sheer, helpless exhaustion: "It's nothing. Your wife just came up with a new excuse to ask for money."

The phone was quickly handed over. Alexander's impatient breathing came through the receiver.

"Alexander..." I tried to cry out that our baby was dying, but he forcefully cut me off.

"Irene, how far are you willing to take this tantrum over money?" he reprimanded me. "Your mouth is full of lies. You keep calling over and over to cause trouble, and now you're using this disgusting excuse to interrupt my work."

"I'm not lying to you! Our child is really dying!" I screamed the truth into the phone, holding nothing back.

But that honest truth only annoyed him further.

Alexander was entirely convinced that I was using our unborn child as a bargaining chip to pressure him into giving me cash.

"Now you've crossed a line, Irene." The voice through the receiver was flat, chilling me to the bone. "I'm hanging up. I'll tell the driver not to pick you up. You can stay in the rain and cool your head."

The call was ruthlessly disconnected.

I called back like a madwoman, but all that greeted me was the dead tone of an unreachable line.

Once, twice, ten times... apart from the suffocating busy signal, there was only his cold voicemail.

Time slipped away, minute by minute, dragging me deeper into despair.

I don't know how long I agonized in panic, but the downtown ambulance finally arrived, braving the torrential rain.

Soaking wet paramedics rushed in and quickly transferred the baby into a portable transport incubator.

Ignoring the tearing pain in my body, I tumbled out of the hospital bed and stumbled after them, staying glued to the stretcher's side.

Yet, just as the paramedics were rushing the transport incubator down the corridor toward the ambulance, the numbers on the baby’s life monitor suddenly plummeted to zero. A long, ear-piercing alarm immediately echoed down the hall.

The rhythmic waves on the screen flattened into a dead, silent line.

"No... no!" I lunged forward, shoving away the paramedic trying to operate the machine, and pressed my trembling hands against my baby's chest—which was no larger than the palm of my hand. Frantically recalling the CPR knowledge I had researched in the past, I pumped his chest over and over, pushing down with everything I had in utter desperation.

"Ma'am, please stop. He has no vital signs." The doctor beside me gripped my shoulders, his face full of grief, while a teary-eyed nurse tried to pull me back.

"Let go of me! He can still be saved! He's just too cold!" I broke free of their grasp and aggressively rubbed my freezing hands together to generate heat, cupping them tightly against my baby's colorless little face, desperate to pass my body warmth into him. "Baby, Mommy is here... Please, come back to life. Open your eyes and look at Mommy..."

But no matter how hard I rubbed his cheeks, no matter how desperately I called out to him, that frail little chest never rose again.

Slowly, I withdrew my stiff hands, carefully picked him up, and pressed him tightly against my heart.

Holding my dead baby in my arms, I collapsed onto the freezing tile floor. Oblivious to the stares of those around me, I broke down and wailed in absolute, soul-crushing agony.