Chapter 2 - THE C-SECTION THAT DISAPPEARED
Three weeks earlier, Elena had been scheduled for a planned cesarean delivery.
It had not been Preston’s recommendation.
That mattered.
At thirty-seven weeks, an ultrasound suggested their baby was substantially larger than expected. The estimate was not a perfect measurement—Dr. Pierce had been careful to explain that—but Elena also had other factors that made a scheduled C-section a reasonable option to discuss.
Elena asked questions.
She went home.
She researched.
Then she chose it.
Preston hated the decision.
“You haven’t even tried labor.”
“I don’t have to prove something first.”
“You’re acting like surgery is the easy option.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You’re scared.”
“Yes.”
Elena remembered staring at him across their kitchen island.
“I’m allowed to be scared.”
Preston had laughed bitterly.
“You’ve been talking to Pierce too much.”
“She’s my OB.”
“I’m an OB.”
“You’re my husband.”
That ended the argument for Elena.
Not for Preston.
Two days later, Khloe called her.
Not from Preston’s office.
From her personal phone.
“Dr. Ward said you had questions about delivery.”
Elena frowned.
“Why are you calling me?”
“He asked me to follow up.”
“Are you on my care team?”
“No, but—”
“Then please stay out of my chart and my pregnancy.”
Khloe went quiet.
Elena immediately regretted how harshly it came out.
But the previous month had already been uncomfortable.
Khloe appeared whenever Preston worked late.
She texted him at midnight.
She called him on weekends.
Once Elena walked into Preston’s home office and found Khloe on speaker discussing patient cases while Preston poured whiskey.
Elena had told him it was inappropriate.
Preston accused her of jealousy.
“She’s an intern.”
“She’s an adult physician.”
“She needs mentorship.”
“She needs boundaries.”
After Elena’s phone conversation with Khloe, Preston came home furious.
“You humiliated her.”
“I told her not to involve herself in my medical care.”
“She was trying to help.”
“She has no reason to access my pregnancy.”
Preston’s face hardened.
“You think every woman around me wants your husband.”
Elena stared.
“I think you enjoy pretending that’s what I said.”
Three days later, Elena received a message through the hospital portal confirming a change to her delivery plan.
Trial of labor.
The scheduled C-section had been removed.
Elena called the office.
A scheduler told her the chart indicated the patient had requested cancellation after discussing options with family.
Elena said:
“I did not.”
The scheduler became nervous.
Dr. Pierce called an hour later.
“There must have been a communication error.”
Elena wanted the surgery restored.
Dr. Pierce agreed.
But two emergency cases had filled the original slot.
They rescheduled for four days later unless labor started first.
Elena went into labor forty-eight hours before that.
At the hospital, Preston arrived fifteen minutes after she did.
And somehow everyone already knew his version.
Elena had “changed her mind several times.”
Elena had “requested a natural delivery if possible.”
Elena had “strong anxiety around surgery.”
Some of that was true.
The conclusions were not.
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By the time her blood pressure crashed, Elena had been laboring for fourteen hours with a baby everyone knew was likely very large.
And her husband had spent most of those hours telling her that enduring it was proof she was not the selfish, vindictive woman who had mistreated Khloe.
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