My husband punched my pregnant sister in the stomach, and thank God he did.
The Punch That Saved a Baby
My husband punched my pregnant sister in the stomach, and thank God he did. My husband walked up to my eight-month pregnant sister during her baby shower and punched her full force in the stomach.
She folded in half and crashed backward into the gift table while 50 guests screamed. I shoved him backward, screaming, “What is wrong with you?”. My mom called 911, sobbing about assault on a pregnant woman.
My dad and brothers pinned my husband against the wall. I was hitting his chest, calling him a psychopath. My sister lay on the floor holding her belly and crying that something was wrong.
Her boyfriend was checking for blood and everyone was filming. My grandmother was having chest pains from the shock. My aunts grabbed their kids and ran.
I dropped beside my sister trying to feel the baby kick. She kept pushing my hands away saying, “Don’t touch it. Hurts too much.”
The neighbor, who was a midwife, tried to come help. My sister curled into a ball, screaming not to touch her stomach. My uncle was on the phone with his lawyer, saying we needed to press charges for attempted murder of an unborn child.
My sister’s mother-in-law fainted and had to be laid on the couch. My sister kept her arms wrapped around her stomach so tight nobody could get close. She was crying that she could feel something was wrong inside.
“Look at her stomach where I hit her.” My husband yelled while fighting against the men holding him. I wanted to kill him until I saw it.
There was a deep dent in my sister’s belly that wasn’t popping back out. That’s memory foam under her dress, not a baby. “And I can prove everything she’s been doing.”
I got to my sister before she could stop me and felt around the dent. My hands went numb, pressing against foam edges and Velcro straps where my nephew should have been.
She’s been buying different sized fake bellies online to fake the progression. She was stealing ultrasound photos from pregnancy forums and photoshopping her name on them. She was scamming everyone for $30,000 in medical bills for appointments that never existed because I checked with every OB in the city.
I kept pressing on the dented foam while my sister tried to push me away. Everyone started grabbing at her stomach, finding more straps and padding underneath.
I followed her after she said she had an OB appointment yesterday and she went to a bar and drank for 2 hours. Then she bought three more fake bellies at a costume shop downtown. My sister was crying, screaming at him to shut up, but he didn’t listen.
My grandmother looked like she was about to faint. My husband showed us her laptop from when she’d left it at our house. The search history was full of realistic pregnancy bellies and how to fake morning sickness and pregnancy symptoms by week and what to say at baby shower.
“But here’s why I had to stop this today,” my husband said while struggling against my brother’s grip, sweat pouring down his face. “I saw her at the hospital last week following a teenage patient around the maternity ward.”
Security footage shows she’s been going to the teen pregnancy support group pretending to be pregnant for 2 months. Our mother was sobbing while my husband showed us screenshots from the hospital cameras. They showed my sister trailing behind a young pregnant girl who was always alone, sitting next to her in the cafeteria, walking her to her car.
She befriended this girl who has no family. She found out she’s being induced tomorrow morning at 6:00 a.m..
Yesterday, she bought a car seat and nurse scrubs and was checking tomorrow’s shift schedules to find the window when the nurses change over. My sister had told everyone she was delivering at a birthing center that doesn’t exist.
She was planning to disappear tonight and come back tomorrow with a stolen newborn she’d claim was hers. She’d even been practicing forging birth certificates and had bought a breast pump and formula to make feeding the stolen baby look real.
Plus, she’d been taking hormones to induce lactation. The foam belly shifted completely sideways and my mom ripped my sister’s dress up. This exposed the entire prosthetic contraption strapped around her waist.
Everyone was screaming and my sister’s boyfriend backed away from her. She looked for exits like a trapped animal. My cousin was on the phone with police describing the fraud and planned kidnapping.
My aunts calculated how much money they’d given her for fake medical expenses. “You ruined everything,” My sister snarled at my husband. She ripped off the fake belly and throwing it at his feet.
“That teenager’s a dark addict who doesn’t deserve a baby, and I would have given it a perfect life.” She started for the door, but my dad and brothers blocked her path, forming a wall.
I watched my sister’s face change into something I’d never seen before in 30 years of knowing her. It was like watching a mask finally fall off. None of us were prepared for how far she was willing to go to get what she wanted.
She broke free from my dad’s grip and lunged straight at my husband with her nails out like claws. My brothers caught her midair and slammed her down onto the living room carpet.
She was kicking and screaming that we ruined her perfect plan while the fake belly lay there dented and twisted. My husband kept yelling for everyone to listen about the hospital footage while my sister thrashed on the floor.
The police sirens were already getting closer because my cousin had called them 5 minutes ago. My sister’s boyfriend stood frozen by the couch just staring at the foam prosthetic. It seemed like his brain couldn’t process it.
Two police cars pulled up and officers rushed through our front door. My sister tried to crawl toward the back exit. My cousin showed them her phone with all the screenshots my husband had sent of the purchases and hospital security footage.
The officers looked at the fake belly on the floor and then at my sister who was still fighting my brothers. They pulled out handcuffs while she screamed that the teenage girl didn’t deserve her baby anyway. She kept switching between sobbing about how we betrayed her and threatening what she’d do when she got out.
The officers read her rights while dragging her toward the police car. All the neighbors came out to watch. My grandmother was clutching her chest on the couch. My aunts fanned her with napkins from the gift table.
The detective who showed up said they needed to contact the hospital immediately about the teenage patient. My husband gave them Becca Torres’s name and they called it in right away to get her protection.
Within an hour, the hospital had moved her to a secure floor with guards posted outside her room. They got an emergency protection order signed by a judge that same night to keep my sister away.
The detective said my sister had been watching this girl for 2 months according to the security footage. But then another officer walked up to my husband and said he was under arrest for assault.
Everyone started yelling that he was protecting a baby from being kidnapped. The officer said assault is assault. My husband put his hands behind his back while I scrambled to find our checkbook for bail money.
