He Abandoned Me in Labor—Then Met the Father He Never Knew I Had

My husband told me to call an Uber while I was in labor.

“Go by yourself,” Vance said. “Don’t ruin my mother’s birthday.”

Rain hammered the bedroom windows so hard that the glass trembled.

I sat on the edge of the bed with one hand beneath my belly and the other gripping my phone. Warm water had already soaked through my nightgown and spread across the hardwood floor.

“Vance, the contractions are four minutes apart.”

Music and laughter filled the background of his call.

He was at a private lodge in the Cascade Mountains, celebrating his mother’s sixty-third birthday with champagne, a chef, and twenty guests.

Meanwhile, I was alone in our Seattle suburb during the worst storm of the winter.

“Then act like an adult and handle it,” he said.

The call ended.

For several seconds, I stared at the dark screen.

Then another contraction tore through me.

I slid from the bed to my knees.

My hospital bag sat near the closet. The infant car seat was locked inside Vance’s SUV, seventy miles away. Water was already rising across the road near our neighborhood entrance.

I called emergency services.

The dispatcher stayed with me while paramedics fought through the flooded streets.

Before leaving the house, I made one more call.

Not to Vance.

To a number I had carried in my phone for eight years but had never used.

A man answered on the second ring.

“Khloe?”

Hearing my name in his voice nearly broke me.

“I’m in labor.”

There was one sharp breath.

“Which hospital?”

“Coastal General.”