Losing Baby to His Mistress

The fluorescent lights of City General Hospital buzzed overhead as I sat in the sterile consultation room, my hands folded tightly in my lap. Dr. Sarah Mitchell, a woman in her early thirties with kind eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses, sat across from me with my test results spread across her desk like pieces of a puzzle I didn't want to solve.

"Mrs. Mills," she began, her voice gentle but firm. "I need you to understand the gravity of what I'm about to tell you."

My heart hammered against my ribs. I'd come in for what I thought was a routine check-up—the persistent nausea, the fatigue I'd attributed to stress from my crumbling marriage. Danny had barely looked up from his phone when I mentioned the appointment.

"You have stage two stomach cancer," Dr. Mitchell said, each word landing like a physical blow. "The tumor is approximately three centimeters and has begun to spread to nearby lymph nodes."

The room tilted. My mouth went dry, and I gripped the arms of the chair to steady myself. "Cancer?" The word felt foreign on my tongue.

"There's something else." Dr. Mitchell's expression grew more serious. "You're eight weeks pregnant."

The air rushed out of my lungs. Pregnant. After five years of hoping, of Danny's increasing indifference whenever I brought up children, now—when my body was betraying me—now there was finally life growing inside me.

"The pregnancy complicates treatment significantly," she continued, pulling out charts and pointing to areas I couldn't focus on through my shock. "The hormonal changes can accelerate cancer progression. We need to begin aggressive treatment immediately, which means..."

She paused, her eyes meeting mine with practiced compassion. "I strongly recommend terminating the pregnancy to save your life, Ashley. I know this isn't what you want to hear, but without immediate treatment, the cancer could become inoperable within months."

I pressed my hand to my stomach instinctively, imagining the tiny life inside—Danny's child, the baby I'd dreamed of. But would he even care? When was the last time he'd touched me with anything resembling tenderness?

"How long do I have to decide?" My voice came out as a whisper.

"Days, not weeks. The sooner we begin treatment, the better your prognosis."

I nodded numbly, barely processing the treatment options she outlined, the survival statistics that seemed to float around me like numbers in a nightmare. All I could think about was going home to Danny, telling him about our baby and my cancer, hoping that maybe this crisis would bring us back together.

Leaving the consultation room felt like walking through water. The hospital corridor stretched endlessly before me, filled with the sounds of life continuing—nurses chatting, machines beeping, families hugging in relief or crying in grief. I moved through it all like a ghost, my diagnosis heavy in my chest.

That's when I saw them.

Danny stood beside a hospital bed in the emergency wing, his tall frame bent over a petite woman with perfectly styled blonde hair. Luciana Hayes,