I got to hold my newborn in my hands for barely an hour. He was the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen, and then he was gone, and doctors couldn’t provide me with answers.

At those moments at that cold hospital room where my dreams crashed and my world turned upside-down, I could see my mother-in-law smiling. If I hadn’t known what type of a woman she was, I would have thought I was imagining things, because who would smile after losing a grandson. But my mother-in-law was a cruel woman who believed I was nowhere near the level of her precious son.

At one moment, while I was still dizzy from the anaesthetics, she leaned towards her daughter and whispered, “God protected this family. That bloodline was supposed to end here.”

Her daughter, Melissa, didn’t show compassion either. The worst of all, neither my husband.

The three of them just stared at me as though I was guilty for losing my son.

And then, right there and then, my 8-year-old son Oliver, who hadn’t said a word that day, which wasn’t like him, asked: “Am I supposed to give the doctor what Grandma put in my baby brother’s milk?”

The nurse froze and the doctor went pale. It felt like in that second, calm turned into controlled chaos. Phones started ringing behind closed doors, security appeared without a word, and a senior nurse knelt down, gently guiding Oliver away. Another carefully lifted the bottle.

Eleanor, my mother-in-law started praying aloud and Melissa started sobbing. Were they sorry I lost my newborn all of a sudden or they were crying over their own fate?

My husband stood in the corner and started saying my name over and over again, as if he had just remembered I was there.

Police arrived shortly after and separated the family, questioning each one of us about what Oliver had said.

The test results from the bottle came quickly, almost too quickly, and showed the presence of substance in the milk that wasn’t harmful to adults when used properly, but for a newborn—hours old—it was lethal.

The drug was the same one Eleanor was taking for year for a condition she suffered from.

The sudden death of my baby wasn’t an accident, and she didn’t deny it. She claimed she was protecting the family of the weakness that run in my blood and that God would forgive her.

Law enforcement certainly didn’t. She was taken to the station for further questioning and was later charged with murder of my newborn baby.

My husband, who has always been enchanted by his dear mother, stood by her side, still believing she was innocent, although he knew she wasn’t.

Eight months later, Eleanor was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. Her daughter, who saw her mother putting something in the bottle but stood silent, accepted a plea deal.

The divorce papers were signed shortly after and I am still struggling to understand how someone could be so cruel as to take a baby from a mother. Today, Oliver and I are away from my ex-husband and his family, doing our best to rebuild our life while still mourning the loss of his baby brother.

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