I came across a post on Facebook that quickly went viral. It told the story of a woman who had just given birth under heartbreaking circumstances. She labored for sixteen hours. Sixteen long, painful hours—alone. No mother, no sister, no best friend’s hand to hold. No husband’s voice to soothe her fears. Just the sterile walls of the hospital, the indifferent faces of doctors who barely looked her in the eye, and the quiet, half-interested glances of students who were there to learn, not to care. Some even dared to take videos, as if her pain was just a spectacle, her privacy disposable, her dignity a detail forgotten in the chaos of clinical curiosity.
The nurse wasn’t cruel, but she wasn’t kind either. She was just… there. Doing her job, perhaps overworked, maybe numb from seeing too many women screaming, pushing, bleeding. The bed she lay on still bore the stains of another woman’s agony. No one had changed the sheets. No one had wiped the blood. And as she lay down, exhausted, barely able to breathe between contractions, she realized this was it—this was how her child would enter the world. In a room that didn’t care, in a moment shared with strangers, without love, without comfort, without warmth.
There was another woman laboring near her, separated by nothing but empty air. Her cries filled the room, echoing through the hollow space like a siren of pain. There was no privacy, no sanctuary. Just the raw, exposed humanity of childbirth, stripped of softness and grace.
And when it was finally over—when the baby was out, when the pain dulled to an ache, when she felt the strange emptiness where life had been for nine long months—they told her to bathe. But the water was cold. The heater didn’t work. “Just use the cold water,” the nurse said flatly. Her body was trembling, still bleeding, still healing, still vulnerable. She worried she’d fall ill. She worried she’d faint. But the nurse didn’t pause, didn’t ask how she felt, didn’t care. There were more patients to attend to. More babies to catch.
And then, finally, the husband arrived.
He came in with a Jollibee paper bag. The bright red logo was like a flash of color in the grey monotony of the hospital. She smiled, her heart lifting at the thought of something familiar, something warm. Maybe he’d brought her Chickenjoy. Maybe some spaghetti. Something delicious. Something to fill the emptiness of her belly and her soul.
She reached for the bag.
“This is for me,” he said.
Confused, she looked up. Maybe he was joking. Maybe he had another bag in the car.
“You have food from the hospital,” he said. “That’s what you need to eat. I’m very hungry.”
And just like that, the little light she had felt died.
Because it wasn’t just about the food. It was what it symbolized. After sixteen hours of labor, after lying in filth, after giving birth without a hand to hold or a kind word to hear, after the cold bath, after the blood and the fear and the loneliness—he brought her nothing. Not even the decency of shared joy. Not even a simple meal.
What kind of man does that?
Some men, I suppose.
But not mine.
When I gave birth, my husband was there every step of the way. He never left my side. He held my hand, wiped my sweat, whispered encouragement when I felt like giving up. He cried when he saw our child, and he kissed my forehead as if I had just performed a miracle—because I had. He took three and a half months off work to help me recover, to hold our baby at night, to change diapers, to cook, to clean, to be a father. To be a partner.
And I don’t take that for granted.
Because stories like hers remind me that not everyone gets that kind of love. Some women go through the most vulnerable moment of their lives without support. They labor in silence, deliver in pain, and recover in isolation. And when they should be celebrated, they are dismissed. When they should be fed, they are neglected. When they should be held, they are abandoned.
I don’t understand how anyone could be so cold. How a man could watch the mother of his child, fresh from the hardest physical ordeal of her life, and think only of his own hunger. How he could look at her—exhausted, fragile, bleeding—and not see the need in her eyes. Not feel the weight of what she had just endured. Not bring her food. Not say, “I’m proud of you. I love you. You were amazing.”
It doesn’t take grand gestures to show love. Sometimes it’s just being there. Sometimes it’s a warm meal, a held hand, a quiet presence in the room. Sometimes it’s standing in the background so she can be strong in the foreground. Sometimes it’s skipping your own meal so she can eat first.
This story stays with me because it’s a reminder. A reminder that love is not always loud or poetic or perfect. But it should be present. It should be real. It should show up when it matters most.
I think of that woman, her Jollibee moment stolen, and I wish I could go back in time, hand her a hot meal, hold her baby while she eats, hug her while she cries. I wish I could tell her that she deserved better. That she was strong. That none of it was her fault.
To the women who go through childbirth alone, to those whose pain is overlooked, whose tears are unseen, whose strength is unpraised—please know that you are not invisible. Your story matters. Your voice matters. You are not weak because you needed help. You are powerful because you kept going, even when there was none.
And to the men—please, do better. Be there. Not just physically, but emotionally, mentally, spiritually. Don’t make your partner feel like she’s doing it alone. Because it’s not just her baby. It’s yours too. And she didn’t make that life alone.
She shouldn’t have to bring it into the world alone either.
