I’ll never forget the silence that fell over that table. We were celebrating my father-in-law’s birthday on the hotel terrace, where they had organized a family dinner. Warm lights hung above us, and the aroma of freshly served dishes mingled with the salty scent of the sea wafting down from below.

I had imagined that moment many times. I had bought a small box and placed the ultrasound inside. I thought about giving it to my husband in front of everyone, but in the end, I decided to simply stand up, smile, and say it out loud. “I’m pregnant,” I announced, feeling my chest swell with emotion.

What followed was an absolute void.

My husband looked at me with the widest eyes I’d ever seen him have, but he didn’t manage to say a word. My mother-in-law, on the other hand, burst into such a loud laugh that several pieces of silverware clattered together.
“She’s faking it!” she shouted, pointing at me as if I were exposing a criminal lie. “She’s doing it to get money from us, just like her mother!”

My body froze. I couldn’t even react when she took a step toward me. I heard my husband call her name, terrified, but she had already grabbed my wrist.

“If she’s pregnant, nothing will happen,” he spat, dragging me to the edge of the terrace.

Panic blinded me. I tried to break free, but his fingers dug into my skin. In a split second that still haunts my nightmares, I felt a sharp shove to my chest. My foot slipped on the metal edge, and then there was only emptiness. The fall lasted perhaps two seconds, but they felt like an eternity: the air hitting my face, my husband’s muffled scream above, the vertigo tearing at my insides.

I crashed into a half-ceiling of the hotel. I felt an excruciating pain shoot through my back and ribs. Then, nothing.

When I came to, everything was white and blurry. I was intubated, a machine beeping monotonously. I could barely move. My husband sat beside me, trembling, his shirt stained with tears and dried blood that I couldn’t tell if it was mine or his. He held my hand as if he feared it would disappear.

“You’re alive…” he whispered, as if he still couldn’t believe it.

Before I could answer, the door opened. The doctor entered with a grave, almost livid expression. My husband sat bolt upright.

—Doctor, tell me… the baby…?

The doctor swallowed, looked at my medical history, then at me, and finally into my husband’s eyes.

What he said then made the air in the room unbreathable, everything came to a standstill in a silence so thick it almost hurt.

And that’s where the real horror began.

The doctor took a deep breath before speaking, as if searching for the strength to utter something that should never be said in a hospital full of life.

“What we found…” he looked at my X-rays, “is not solely a consequence of the fall. Ma’am, you were admitted with multiple recent fractures, but also with hematomas at different stages of healing.”

My husband frowned, confused.
“What do you mean?”

The doctor looked directly at me.
“Your body shows signs of previous assaults. Multiple ones. Not an accident.”

My breath caught in my throat. My husband’s eyes widened in terror.
“No… that’s not…” he stammered, staring at my arms, my bandaged ribs. “She never… she never told me…”

The doctor continued:
“Furthermore, we found elevated levels of a substance in his blood. A medication that wasn’t administered by mistake. Someone gave it to him over a prolonged period. In small but constant doses.”

My husband put his hands to his face, incredulous.
I, unable to stand, could barely move my lips.
“No… I didn’t know…” I whispered.

And it was true. I’d had strange dizziness for weeks. Aches and pains I attributed to stress. I’d even fainted two days before dinner. I never imagined someone could be poisoning me.

“Is the baby okay?” I finally asked, in a whisper.

The doctor lowered his gaze.
“The embryo didn’t survive. But not because of the fall. Because of the medication. Her pregnancy had been put at risk long before that night.”

My husband let out a broken groan. He collapsed into the chair as if half his body had been ripped away.

Memories began swirling in my mind… the teas my mother-in-law made for me “for anxiety,” the unexpected visits, the constant comment that “it wasn’t the right time to have children yet.” Suddenly, everything took on a macabre meaning.

“She knew,” I said, feeling a lump in my throat. “She knew I was pregnant. And she knew what she’d done.”

My husband raised his head, furious.
“But pushing you…! That doesn’t make any sense! Why…?”

The doctor was blunt:
“Because if you died, no one would investigate your previous health conditions. It would have looked like a tragic accident.”

The room was filled with a thick silence. My husband got up and walked to the window, banging on the frame with his fist.

“I can’t believe my own mother…” her voice broke.

“Where is she?” I asked.

The doctor sighed.
“The police arrested her at the hotel. Several people saw the shove. She’s being questioned.”

My husband came back to my bed and knelt down.
“I swear I won’t let this go,” he said with a determination I’d never seen in him before. “Everything he did to you… everything he did to us…”

But as he spoke, something inside me slowly broke. I hadn’t just lost my baby. I had lost my sense of security, of belonging, of family. And the unanswered questions began to weigh heavily on my chest.

What would happen to us after this?
Could such a deep wound truly heal?

And above all… how far had my mother-in-law been willing to go?

The next morning, still sore and sedated, I received a visit from two detectives. My husband stayed by my side the whole time, holding my hand like an anchor.

“We need you to tell us what happened,” said Detective Ramirez, a woman with a firm demeanor but a compassionate gaze. “Mrs. Vega has already given her version.”

My stomach churned.
“What did she say?”

Detective Silva snorted in disbelief before replying,
“You claim you got too close to the edge, that you tripped, and that she only tried to grab you. Several people have stated the opposite, but we need your official testimony.”

I recounted everything in a trembling voice. The fear returned every time I remembered his shove. My husband closed his eyes, clenching his jaw.

When I finished, Detective Ramirez explained to me:
“There are charges for attempted homicide. However, if we can prove there was prior intoxication… the case will be much more serious.”

“Have you checked the teas she gave me?” I asked.

The detective nodded.
“We’re analyzing medicinal plants we found in her bag. Some may be harmless… others not so much.”

After they left, the silence between my husband and me was long and tense. I knew he was devastated. Not only because of me and our baby, but because the woman who gave him life had almost taken it from me.

“I don’t know how to face her,” he finally said, burying his face in his hands. “I don’t know what to say to her… or if I’ll ever be able to forgive her.”

I wanted to comfort him, but I barely had the strength to emotionally support myself.

The following weeks were a whirlwind: surgeries, rehabilitation, interrogations, toxicology tests, psychologists, lawyers. We discovered that the substance detected in my system had been administered in small doses over several weeks. Not lethal, but enough to weaken me and affect the pregnancy.

The evidence was overwhelming.

My mother-in-law denied everything until the day of the trial. She looked impeccable, as if she were walking into a gala. When our eyes met, she smiled. A cold smile, as if I were a passing nuisance.

During the proceedings, something was revealed that chilled me to the bone: there were suspicious transfers, hidden loans, and veiled threats against my father-in-law, who broke down in tears while testifying. He claimed to know nothing, but admitted that his wife had been obsessed for months with the idea that “a baby would ruin the family’s stability.”

My husband testified, his voice breaking. He said he had discovered messages on his mother’s phone where she spoke of “everything needing to stop before it’s too late.”

I finally declared. Each word tore a piece of my soul away.

The verdict came after hours of unbearable waiting: guilty of attempted homicide and of endangering my life through continued intoxication.

My husband wept silently. Not with relief: with grief.

The recovery was slow, both physically and emotionally. During the months that followed, my husband and I had difficult conversations. He was afraid of losing me. I was afraid of never feeling safe again.

But something began to be reborn among us: a shared will not to let the horror define our lives. We went to therapy, we took a break from the world, we rebuilt step by step what had been shattered.

One day, as we were walking together for the first time without crutches, he stopped, looked me in the eyes and said:

—When you’re ready… we can try again. But only when you want to.

And for the first time since the fall, I felt that the future could be different. That my story didn’t end on a rooftop or in a hospital room.

But in the conscious decision to keep living, healing, and looking ahead.

Because after so much pain, we deserved, at last, some peace.