The Hospital Hoax: A Mother-in-Law’s Cruel Design

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After giving birth to my first children—twin daughters—I desperately hoped my husband would finally choose his new family over his mother. But I was wrong. This time, he’d chosen her side one last, painful time, forcing me to expose his mother for the manipulative bully and liar she truly was.

You’d think bringing home your newborn twins would be one of the happiest, most cherished moments of your life. For me, it certainly started like that, but it quickly spiraled into an absolute nightmare!

After three days in the hospital, recovering from a grueling delivery, I was finally discharged and ready to head home with my beautiful twin daughters, Ella and Sophie. I’d vividly imagined this moment for months: Derek, my husband, picking us up at the hospital with flowers, tears of joy in his eyes as he lovingly took one of the girls into his arms.

But instead, at the very last minute, I received a hurried, clipped phone call that changed everything.

“Hey, baby,” my husband said, his voice surprisingly clipped. “I am so incredibly sorry, but I can’t come pick you guys up as planned.”

“What?” I asked, adjusting the swaddle around Sophie. “Derek, I just had twins. What could possibly be so important that you can’t—”

“It’s my mom,” he interrupted, sounding genuinely exasperated. “She’s in bad shape. Hectic chest pains. I need to pick her up and take her to that hospital close to her city.”

His words hit me like a bucket of cold water. “What? Why didn’t you tell me earlier? Derek, I need you here, now.”

“I know, I know,” he said, stressed. “But this happened suddenly, and it sounds serious. I’ll come to you as soon as I possibly can.”

I gritted my teeth hard, fighting the urge to scream in disappointment and raw frustration, but I managed a tight reply, “Fine. I’ll just call for a taxi, then.”

“Thank you,” he mumbled before quickly hanging up.

My husband’s mother, Lorraine, lived in a different city, making the chances of him getting back that same day to retrieve me and the babies completely unrealistic. Knowing how obsessively devoted Derek was to his mother, he wasn't going to leave her by herself at the hospital, hence the taxi solution.

As the line went dead, my heart sank into a well of disappointment. I desperately wanted to believe Derek wasn’t being callous, just overwhelmed and merely a mama’s boy. Still, the sting of abandonment was sharp. The same mother-in-law (MIL) who had recently insisted we make her a separate set of keys to our house so she could "help" me with the babies was now conveniently, suddenly, unwell.

I tried shaking off the feeling as I bundled the girls into their car seats—the ones their father had dropped off the previous day—and got us into a waiting cab.

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The Note and the Lockout

When we pulled into our familiar driveway, I froze completely. My suitcases, the heavy diaper bags, and even the crib mattress were haphazardly scattered across the front lawn and by the doorstep! A heavy knot of dread formed in my stomach. I paid the driver, and stepped out with the twins, glancing around nervously. Something was obviously, terribly wrong.

I approached the front door, fumbling with my keys while absentmindedly calling out my husband’s name, even though I knew he couldn’t be home yet. The key wouldn’t turn the lock. Confused, I tried again. Nothing. Then I saw it: a folded piece of paper taped aggressively to a suitcase.

Get out of here with your little moochers! I know everything. Derek.

My breath hitched painfully, and my heart seemed to stop altogether. My hands trembled violently as I read the note again and again, trying desperately to rationalize it as a joke or a horrible hallucination. This could not be happening. Not Derek…

Not the man who held my hand through every single doctor’s appointment, who cried silent tears when we heard our daughters’ heartbeats for the first time. Then, the true, desperate panic of that day began to set in.

Wanting immediate answers, I called him. Straight to voicemail. Again. Voicemail. Panic spiked as Sophie’s cries joined Ella’s, doubling the sound. I rocked their car seats, forcing myself to think clearly.

“Mom,” I whispered, tears blurring my vision. My hands shook as I dialed her number, breaking down in sobs as soon as she answered.

“Jenna?” Mom answered on the first ring, alarmed. “What’s wrong? Are the twins okay?”

I choked out the harrowing words, barely able to hold it together. I hadn’t wanted to involve my mother due to her own recent illness, but this was a dire moment.

“Derek… He changed the locks. He threw my stuff outside. Mom, he left this awful, awful note.”

“WHAT?!” Her voice was a sharp cry of disbelief. “Stay exactly where you are. I’m coming now.”

Minutes felt like agonizing hours before she arrived. Mom took one look at the humiliating mess and narrowed her eyes, instantly fuming.

“This makes absolutely no sense! Derek would never do this; he loves you and those girls!”

“That’s exactly what I thought,” I said, rocking Ella to calm her cries. “But he’s not answering. And what does ‘I know everything’ even mean?” I asked, showing her the offensive, damning note.

“I am so sorry, my darling,” she said, hugging me close. “Let’s go to my place immediately until we can get a hold of your spineless husband, okay?”

She helped me load the bags into her car and whisked us back to her place. After my mother and I dissected every part of what had happened and repeatedly called Derek with no answer, my anxiety spiked. That night, I barely slept a wink.

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The Cold, Hard Truth

The next morning, I knew I had to have answers. Leaving the peacefully sleeping twins with Mom, I drove back in her car to the house. The yard was now empty, my belongings gone. I knocked sharply on the front door. No response. I walked around to the back, peering through the windows, and froze in total disbelief.

Derek’s mother, Lorraine, sat comfortably at our dining table, sipping tea!

I banged on the back door, and she looked up, startled, almost spilling her tea before she saw me and a malicious smirk instantly formed on her face.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded, banging on the glass.

Lorraine rose leisurely and opened the door just a crack. “Jenna. You’re not welcome here anymore, didn’t you read the note?”

“Where’s Derek?” I snapped, my voice shaking. “Why did he—”

“He’s still at the hospital in my city,” she said smoothly, utterly unbothered. “Taking care of his very sick mother.”

I stared at her, disbelief turning into cold certainty. “Sick? You are standing right here, drinking tea!”

She shrugged slightly, her lips curling into a triumphant, evil smile. “Maybe I’m feeling better now. Miracles happen, dear.”

“You lied to him, didn’t you? You faked being sick to get him away!”

Her smile widened into a hideous grin. “And?”

My hands balled into fists. “Why? Why would you orchestrate such a cruel thing?”

She crossed her arms, her smugness growing with every second.

“I told Derek from the start that our family needs a boy to carry on the name. But you? You gave us two girls. Useless,” she confessed unapologetically, finally speaking her deep-seated truth after all the years I’d been with her son.

Her words knocked the air out of me. I was too stunned to speak, and she took my paralyzing silence as permission to keep going, relishing in her power.

“I knew you’d ruin my son’s future, so I took matters into my own hands. The note was perhaps a bit much, but I needed you to believe he wanted you gone forever. I even ensured he couldn’t call you by taking his phone right out of his pocket when he wasn’t looking. You were supposed to take your things and get out of our lives, but here you are, back like a bad penny…”

I physically couldn’t breathe. This venomous woman had orchestrated everything, lied to her own son about a medical emergency, locked me out of my home with newborn babies, and stole his phone—all because she savagely disapproved of my daughters’ gender!

“You threw us out over that?”

“Of course,” she said, completely unbothered. “I even bribed a low-level nurse at the hospital to keep him there waiting. And it worked perfectly, didn’t it?”

I felt physically sick. “You are deranged and malicious!”

“Call me what you want,” she sneered. “I call it protecting my family’s name. Besides, my Derek always takes my side and will see things my way, as usual. Now leave.”

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The Reckoning

Her arrogant words echoed in my mind as I drove toward the hospital where my husband was still dutifully waiting. With every mile, my cold anger grew into a blinding fury. How could she possibly justify such grotesque cruelty? My hands gripped the steering wheel tightly, knuckles white and tense.

I knew my MIL was mean and critical, but I didn’t know she was evil! She never approved of my relationship or marriage to her son, always believing Derek deserved someone wealthier and fancier—unlike me, the simple girl he chose.

When I reached the hospital, I found my husband pacing restlessly in the waiting room, his eyes shadowed with worry and fatigue.

“Jenna!” he said, rushing toward me with relief. “Where have you been? I don’t have my phone or know your number by heart, so I couldn’t call you or reach the hospital to check on you!”

“Your mother took your phone,” I cut him off, my voice steady. “She faked her illness and locked me and our babies out of the house!”

He froze mid-step, confusion and denial flashing across his face. “What? That doesn’t make any sense, Jenna.”

“She set me up, wrote a fake note from you sending me away, and bribed a nurse to lie to you and keep you here,” I explained, my voice trembling with suppressed rage. “Lorraine is at our house right now, sipping tea like she’s the queen of the world!”

“Wait. What? Why would she…”

“Because our beautiful daughters aren’t boys,” I said, the words bitter on my tongue.

The initial shock turned to a profound, white-hot rage on his face. Without saying another word, he snatched his keys from his pocket and stormed out the hospital doors, with me following close behind. When we pulled into our driveway, Lorraine was exactly where I’d left her, looking utterly unbothered by her actions.

But her smugness vanished instantly when she saw the sheer determination and fury on Derek’s face.

“Mom,” he said, his voice cold and sharp, ringing with authority. “What did you do? I thought you were in the hospital, potentially dying?”

She opened her mouth, likely to spin another lie, but Derek cut her off savagely. “Save it. I know everything.”

“Derek, darling… I was just trying to—”

“You’ve done enough,” he snapped. “You made me abandon my wife and my newborn children for a completely fake emergency! Then you locked my wife, who just gave birth, and our newborn babies out of our own home! On top of that, you cut our ability to communicate during such a crucial time by stealing my phone!”

“Derek, darling… I just wanted to keep you safe from her. This isn’t how this was supposed to go,” my MIL pleaded, tears finally forming.

“Keep me safe from my wife and children? Who told you I wanted boys? What gives you the right to think my girls aren’t good enough for me just because of their gender? That’s a disgusting problem you have, not me, and if you want sons, I suggest you go make them yourself!”

I stood with my mouth agape, having never witnessed Derek this truly angry and forceful! I won’t lie, a deep part of me was soaring with pride—he was finally proving himself worthy of me by defending my and the children’s honor. At that moment, I loved him more than ever before.

“Pack your things and leave now,” he demanded, his voice trembling with finality.

She gaped at him, the tears finally flowing freely. “You can’t possibly mean that. I’m your mother!”

“And Jenna is my WIFE! Those are my DAUGHTERS! If you cannot respect them, you are not a part of our lives!”

For once, Lorraine was utterly speechless. She stormed upstairs to pack, slamming doors with childish fury as she went. Derek turned to me, his eyes full of raw remorse and shame.

“I am so sorry, my love. I truly did not know the extent of her cruelty.”

I let out a shaky breath, the tension easing just a little bit. “I just want us to move forward, together.”

Lorraine left that night, vanishing into the night. My husband apologized repeatedly, tearfully vowing to make things right. And he did. He immediately changed the locks, permanently blocked his mother’s number, and even reported the bribe-taking nurse to the hospital administration!

It wasn’t easy, but for months, we worked diligently on rebuilding our life and our trust. One evening, as I rocked Ella and Sophie to sleep, I realized Lorraine had tried desperately to destroy us, but her evil plot only managed to bring Derek and me closer together than we had ever been.