I don’t know what happened after I passed out. I don’t know how I got to the hospital. I just know I did.

I woke up to beeping. The sterile, sharp smell of a hospital. Rick was by my side, his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking. He was sobbing.

It took me a few moments to make sense of anything. And when I saw Rick crying, my heart stopped.

Everything came flooding back—the bathroom, the lock, the pain, Rachel’s cold face. I assumed the worst. I thought I had woken up, but my baby hadn’t.

“May,” I whispered, my voice cracked and dry. “Where is she? Is she…?”

Rick’s head snapped up. His eyes were red and raw. When he saw I was awake, he let out a sound—a desperate, strangled sob of relief—and just collapsed into my arms. I didn’t know what to think. I felt a sinking, black dread in my stomach.

Then, the door opened. A nurse came in, pushing a small bassinet. She smiled. “Look who’s awake to meet her mommy.”

I have never, ever felt a wave of relief like that. It was so total, it was like a physical force. My daughter was here. She was safe.

I held her for the first time, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget that feeling. I just cried, staring at her.

Rick didn’t give me the details right away. He just let me have that moment. But I could hear a commotion outside my door. Raised voices.

“What’s going on out there?” I asked.

Rick’s face hardened. “My mother is outside. She wants to see her granddaughter.”

I looked at him, and I told him everything. In detail. What she said. What she did. How she locked me in. “There is no way,” I told him, my voice shaking with a new kind of rage. “I am never, ever allowing her near my daughter. To me, she is dead.”

“I know,” Rick said, his voice cold. “She broke down and told me everything when I found you.”

He explained that when I didn’t come back, he’d gotten a sick feeling. He went looking for me. He found the locked door and broke it open. He found me, unconscious, on the bathroom floor.

“She’s dead to me,” Rick said, his voice flat and final. “I’m pressing charges for life endangerment. I’m going the legal route, and I will make sure she is punished for what she did.”

I felt a mountain of weight lift off my shoulders. I know he loves his mother. I know she raised him. And in that moment, I was so, so scared he would choose her, that he would make excuses for her. If he had, our marriage would have been over. There is no coming back from that. But he didn’t. He chose us.

“How was the wedding?” I whispered. “Is Anna… is she mad?”

Rick actually laughed. “You don’t have to worry about Anna. She and Emma are waiting for my call. Anna has been beaming, claiming her complete family was at the wedding and that May’s birth is the best wedding gift she could have received.”

I started bawling all over again. He called them, and within minutes, Anna and Jonah were at the hospital.

They were still in their wedding clothes.

Anna, in her beautiful white gown, rushed right over to me, her eyes shining with tears. “You did it!” she cried. Then she looked at May. “Oh, she’s perfect.”

“Anna,” I sobbed, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I ruined your day.”

She hugged me. “Ruined it? You made my day. But,” she said, pulling back, “there’s no way I’m passing up the chance to take a wedding picture with my new niece.”

And that’s how we got a picture of a bride and groom, in all their wedding finery, standing next to my hospital bed, holding a baby who was less than an hour old.

I told them what Rachel did. Anna’s face went dark. She told me the only thing I did wrong was not telling her sooner about Rachel’s hostility. While we were talking, Rachel was still trying to get in. Anna walked to the door, opened it, and told her mother that she would personally make sure Rick and I pressed charges. Then she shut the door in her face.

Anna is one of the best women I know. I have no idea how she and Rachel are related.

When we got home a few days later, Rick told me he’d had it out with his mother. He informed her he was pressing charges and that she was never, ever allowed in May’s life. He also told her the money he and Emma had been sending her every month was being substantially reduced.

That is when she started crying. Not when she almost killed me. Not when she almost killed her granddaughter. But when the money was threatened.

She wailed about how she had “slaved away” her whole life and didn’t deserve this.

Rick told her that while he appreciated what she did for them, it didn’t give her control over their lives. He said he had made excuses for her for years, but not anymore. When it came to May and me, she had proven she was not safe to be around.

We were proceeding with the case. All three siblings—Rick, Anna, and Emma—were no-contact with her.

But… I’m a new mom. I’m hormonal. And I started to feel… bad. As horrible as it was, it all backfired on her so terribly. I convinced Rick to drop the charges. We had too much on our plate, and I just wanted to focus on May. He was reluctant, but he agreed.

We told Rachel. She appeared thankful.

That was our second mistake.

Last week, at 1:00 a.m., we woke up to a violent, loud banging on our front door.

I was terrified. I thought it was a robbery. I grabbed May and ran into the nursery, locking the door, while Rick went downstairs. I could hear shouting.

It was Rachel. She was behaving, as Rick put it, “like a crazy person.” She was screaming that she demanded to see May, that we couldn’t keep her away. She was trying to force her way into our house. Rick had to threaten to call the police to get her to leave.

We were concerned. We thought she was having a breakdown.

The next day, she sent us the text.

It started with how “nasty” and “horrid” we were. How her only “crime” was being a mother. How she had to “juggle” her kids’ priorities, and that’s what she was doing at the wedding—prioritizing Anna.

But then, the text became… unhinged.

She wrote—and I am still sick thinking about it—that she was worried that with May in our lives, she wouldn’t be as important to her kids anymore.

She wrote that when I announced my pregnancy, she thought Anna would be mad, because that’s what a “normal” woman would feel. But when she saw we were all happy—happy about the wedding and the baby—she didn’t like it.

She admitted she wanted us to be jealous and competitive.

She said she felt disrespected that a baby who wasn’t even born had taken her place as the “uniting factor” for the siblings.

I asked Rick to block her before she could even finish typing.

She wasn’t protecting Anna. She was jealous of Anna. She was jealous of me. She was in a sick, twisted competition for “Most Important Person” with a seven-week-old baby.

She didn’t lock me in that bathroom to save Anna’s spotlight. She locked me in that bathroom because she hated that my baby was bringing the family closer, in a way she no longer could.

We forwarded the messages to Anna and Emma. They were horrified. Emma flew down immediately, determined to get her mother a psychiatric evaluation.

Well, she did. We just got the results.

Rachel was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, but that was it. The doctor, a psychologist, and a psychiatrist all confirmed it. There is no underlying medical reason for her behavior. There is no manic episode. There is no psychosis.

This is just who she is.

Emma, who was willing to help if her mother was sick, has now gone completely no-contact. As she put it, “I can’t tolerate hatefulness.”

We now have a restraining order against her.

For Rick and me, May’s safety is the only thing that matters. Rachel has now proven twice that she is unhinged and unsafe. And now we know she has a specific, hateful ill will toward our daughter for simply existing.

There is no reconciling with that. There is no “talking it out.”

Our family is smaller now, but it’s stronger. And it is safe. And I’ve learned that “family” isn’t just about blood. It’s about who shows up for you. It’s about the sister-in-law who comes to the hospital in her wedding dress, not the mother-in-law who would leave you to die on a bathroom floor.