In Manila, people looked at me like a failed woman: no husband, no child, no family backing me up. Friends became cautious around me. Relatives sighed whenever they saw me. No one said it outright, but I understood… they pitied me.
But no one knew that right after I signed those cold divorce papers,
I was already carrying his child.
His name is Ethan Parker, three years older than me. We had once been married, once lived together in a small apartment in Quezon City. Ethan wasn’t a bad man. He never was.
He was just… too silent.
His mother, on the other hand, was the opposite.
She never accepted me. To her, I was just a provincial girl from Laguna, never good enough for her son. At every family meal, I felt like an outsider.
The breaking point came with my first miscarriage.
That day, I was curled up in pain on a hospital bed in a public hospital. Ethan arrived late. His mother didn’t come at all.
That evening, she said it straight to my face:
“This family doesn’t keep a woman who can’t give birth.”
Ethan stayed silent.
That silence… killed something inside me.
I carried that pain out of my marriage, signed the divorce papers quietly—no arguments, no fights, no begging to stay.
Two weeks later… I found out I was pregnant again.
My hands trembled as I stared at the pregnancy test—two bright red lines. My heart was pounding out of control. I sat on the floor for a long time, not crying, not smiling.
I should have called Ethan.
I should have said, “I’m having your child.”
But I didn’t have the courage.
I was afraid he’d think I was trying to cling to him.
I was afraid his mother would try to take the baby from me.
And most of all… I was afraid of the pity in the eyes of the man who used to be my husband.
So I decided to hide it.
For nine months, I lived like someone on the run. I quit my office job, moved into a small rented room in Santa Mesa, changed my phone number, deactivated Facebook, and avoided everyone I knew.
I was too scared to go to big hospitals. I only visited small private clinics.
Every time a doctor asked,
“Where is the baby’s father?”
I would force a smile and say,
“There isn’t one.”
The day labor started, the pain came violently. I was rushed to a district hospital in Manila, my back soaked in sweat, my hands gripping the bedsheets until my knuckles turned white.