I always believed that having a baby would bring us closer. But I never expected that my husband’s mother would tear us apart. She controlled everything, and my husband let her. I tried setting boundaries, but nothing prepared me for the betrayal that left me standing at the door with my newborn in my arms—alone.

But I wasn’t the only one waiting for this child.

Bill’s mother, Jessica, had been waiting too—just not in the way a grandmother should.

She had never liked me, never even pretended to. From the beginning, she made it clear I wasn’t good enough for her son.

“Bill deserves someone better,” she’d say, shaking her head whenever I was around.
And the moment she found out I was pregnant, everything changed. But not in the way I had hoped.

It was as if the baby belonged to her, not me.

She invited herself to every doctor’s appointment. She dictated how I should eat, how I should sleep, how I should breathe.

“You need me to come with you to the doctor,” she’d insist, already grabbing her coat. “I know what’s best.”