The Midwife - (Episode 4 of 4) - "The Delivery"

0:03 Hello and welcome to Ghost Scary Stories. This is The Midwife, Episode 4, The Delivery.

0:34 My sister arrived two days later. Carmen drove straight through from Chicago, 14 hours without stopping, and when she walked through Ben's front door, I collapsed into her arms and sobbed until I couldn't breathe. I believe you, she kept saying, holding me tight. I saw the photographs. I believe you.

0:56 Those three words meant more than I could express. After days of Ben's silence, of the town's sideways glances, of Mrs. Holloway's calm certainty that no one would ever take my side, finally, someone believed me. Carmen had already started making calls. A lawyer friend in Chicago who specialised in medical malpractice. A journalist at the Tribune who covered institutional abuse. A private investigator who could dig into Mrs. Holloway's background, find other victims, build a case that couldn't be ignored. We need to get you out of here, Carmen said. Today. Now. You can have the baby in Chicago, where she can't touch you.

1:40 Ben won't come. Then leave him. I looked out the window at the quiet street, the neat houses, the children playing in yards. Somewhere out there, Ben was staying with Mrs. Holloway, sleeping in the room where he'd slept as a child, being comforted by the woman who'd stolen him from his real mother. He hadn't come home since our fight. He'd sent one text. I need time to process. Please don't contact me. I can't leave without talking to him, I said.

2:14 I can't let her have him too.

2:17 Rachel.

2:18 One conversation. That's all I need. Then we go. Carmen didn't like it, but she agreed. We drove to Mrs Holloway's house together, my sister behind the wheel, my hands wrapped protectively around my belly. The Victorian loomed against the grey sky, beautiful and terrible. I could see movement behind the curtains, someone watching, always watching. I'll wait here, Carmen said.

2:50 If you're not out in 20 minutes, I'm calling the police. The sheriff is one of her people. Then I'm calling the state police, the FBI, everyone. She squeezed my hand. Get your husband and get out. We'll deal with the rest from Chicago. I walked up the porch steps, rang the bell. Mrs Holloway answered with a smile. Rachel, how lovely.

3:16 I was hoping you'd come. She stepped aside. Ben's in the sitting room. He's been so worried about you. I walked past her without speaking. found my way to a room full of antique furniture and afternoon light, where my husband sat on a velvet couch looking like he hadn't slept in days.

3:37 Rachel.

3:38 He stood up. I didn't think you'd come. We need to leave. Right now. Carmen's outside with the car. Leave. He shook his head slowly. I can't leave. Not until I understand what's happening. Not until I figure out what's true. I showed you what's true. The birth certificates. Elaine Marsh. The photograph. Mrs Holloway explained all of that. His voice was tired, defeated. The birth certificate was a clerical error from a time when records were kept by hand. Elaine Marsh is a troubled woman who's never recovered from her stillbirth.

4:20 The photograph. Babies look alike, Rachel. That's not evidence of anything. And the ledger. The forty years of placements documented in her own handwriting? He hesitated. She showed me those records. They're adoption referrals. She's helped connect families with babies who needed homes. Everything legal. Everything documented with the proper authorities.

4:46 That's not what I saw. Maybe you saw what you wanted to see. He took my hands. His grip was gentle but firm. Rachel, I love you. I love our daughter. Rachel. But you've been spiralling since we got here. The anxiety, the paranoia, the conspiracy theories. This isn't healthy. It's not safe for you or the baby. I pulled away. She's gotten to you. She's convinced you I'm crazy. No one thinks you're crazy. We think you're struggling. We think you need help. He reached for me again. Mrs Holloway knows a specialist in the city. a psychiatrist who works with high-risk pregnancies. If you'd just agree to talk to someone.

5:32 I'm not going to a psychiatrist she's chosen. I'm not letting anyone she knows anywhere near me or my baby. Our baby, his voice hardened. She's my daughter too, Rachel, and I won't let your paranoia put her at risk. The words hit me like a slap. What does that mean? It means I've talked to a lawyer. If you won't get help voluntarily... I can petition for a psychiatric evaluation.

5:58 For the safety of the child. I stared at him. This man I'd married. This man I'd loved. This man who was threatening to have me committed so that Mrs Holloway could take our daughter. She did this, I whispered. She's been planning this since we arrived. She knew exactly how to isolate me. How to make me look unstable.

6:24 How to turn you against me. No one turned me against you. I'm trying to help you. By threatening to lock me up? By doing whatever it takes to keep our daughter safe? His eyes were wet. I don't want to do this, Rachel. I don't want any of this. But you're not giving me a choice. Behind me, I heard Mrs Holloway's soft footsteps. Perhaps we should all sit down, she said. Have some tea. Discuss this calmly. I turned to face her. She stood in the doorway, that same warm smile on her face, a tea tray in her hands.

7:06 I know what you are, I said. I know what you've done. And I will spend the rest of my life making sure everyone else knows too. I'm sure you believe that, dear. She set down the tray. But right now, I think you need to rest. The stress isn't good for the baby. Don't talk about my baby. Our baby, Ben said again. I looked between them. My husband and the woman who'd stolen him, united against me, convinced they were doing the right thing. I'm leaving, I said, right now.

7:43 And if either of you tries to stop me, I swear to God I'll... The pain hit without warning. A tightening across my abdomen, sharp and sudden... doubling me over before I could finish my sentence. I grabbed the back of a chair, gasping, feeling something shift deep inside me. Rachel! Ben was at my side instantly. What's wrong? I don't...

8:07 Another wave of pain, stronger. Something's happening, something's... I felt a warm rush between my legs, looked down to see fluid pooling on Mrs. Holloway's antique rug. Her water broke, Mrs. Holloway said calmly. The baby's coming.

8:25 No.

8:26 Not now. Not here. I had three weeks left. The baby wasn't supposed to come for three more weeks. We need to get her to a hospital, Ben said. The nearest hospital is 45 minutes away. The baby won't wait that long. Mrs Holloway was already moving, clearing space, pulling supplies from a cabinet I hadn't noticed. Help me get her to the birthing room.

8:51 No. No.

8:52 I pushed away from the chair, staggered toward the door. I'm not having my baby here. I'm not letting you... Another contraction. I fell to my knees, the pain overwhelming everything else, my body betraying me at the worst possible moment. Carmen, I gasped. My sister. She's outside. I'll get her, Ben said.

9:15 No.

9:16 Mrs. Holloway's voice was sharp. The baby is coming now. There's no time. Help me get her upstairs. They lifted me between them, Ben on one side, Mrs Holloway on the other. I tried to fight, tried to pull away, but the contractions were coming fast now, too fast, and I couldn't focus on anything except the pain. The birthing room was at the top of the stairs. I caught glimpses as they carried me. A hospital bed, medical equipment, soft lighting. A room designed for exactly this purpose. A room where Mrs Holloway had delivered hundreds of babies over 40 years. Where she'd taken them from their mothers. Please, I said. Please, Ben. Don't let her do this. Everything's going to be okay. He was crying. I could hear

10:27 it in his voice. Just focus on the baby. Everything else we'll figure out later. They put me on the bed. Mrs Holloway was moving efficiently, checking my dilation, preparing instruments I couldn't see. She's at eight centimetres, she announced. This baby is eager to arrive. It'll be over soon. I want my sister. I want Carmen. Your sister can see the baby after it's born. Mrs Holloway snapped on latex gloves.

10:58 Right now, I need you to focus. Can you do that for me, Rachel? Don't touch me, don't touch my baby. I'm going to deliver your baby, whether you cooperate or not. That's simply biology. She positioned herself at the foot of the bed. The question is whether you make this harder than it needs to be. I looked at Ben. He stood beside me, holding my hand. his face a mask of anguish. Don't let her take our daughter, I said. Please.

11:30 Whatever you believe about me, whatever she's told you, don't let her take our baby. No one's taking anyone, he said. You're going to deliver the baby, and then we're all going to figure this out together. She's going to give our daughter to the Hendersons. She told me. She has the whole thing planned. That's the paranoia talking. It's not.

11:53 I squeezed his hand so hard I felt bones shift. Look at the ledger. Look at the records. Ask her about Elaine Marsh, about your real mother. Ask her why she had Elaine committed before I could use her testimony. Elaine Marsh is mentally ill, Mrs Holloway said calmly. She's been unwell for 35 years. Any testimony she provided would be the product of delusion, not truth. Is that what you told the police? Is that why they took her away in handcuffs? Mrs Holloway didn't answer. She was focused on her work, her hands moving with practiced efficiency. Another contraction hit. The worst one yet. I screamed, my back arching off the bed, every muscle in my body focused on the impossible task of pushing a human being out

12:44 of me. That's it, Mrs Holloway said. You're doing beautifully. A few more pushes. and it'll all be over. Ben. I grabbed his shirt, pulled his face close to mine. She's going to take our baby. The moment she's born, Mrs Holloway is going to say something's wrong. A complication. A problem. Something that requires immediate intervention. She's going to take our daughter out of this room, and you will never see her again. Rachel. That's what she did to your mother. To Elaine. She told her the baby wasn't breathing, took him away to work on him, and came back with a story about a cord around the neck. You were that baby, Ben. You were stolen from your mother in a room just like this one. I saw something

13:36 shift in his eyes, a crack in his certainty. That's not possible, he said, but his voice wavered. Ask her. Ask her about November 14th, 1987. Ask her about Elaine Marsh's son. he looked at Mrs Holloway. She was still focused on the delivery, her expression serene. Mrs Holloway, is there any truth to what she's saying? Your wife is in active labour, Ben. She's frightened and in pain. This isn't the time for conspiracy theories. Answer the question. Mrs Holloway paused. For the first time since I'd met her, I saw something other than warm confidence in her face.

14:20 Elaine Marsh gave birth to a stillborn boy on November 14th, 1987, she said carefully. It was a tragedy. These things happen, despite our best efforts. Your parents received you through a private adoption. Perfectly legal, perfectly documented. The timing was coincidental. Show me the documentation. Now. Yes, now. Another contraction. I pushed, screaming.

14:49 feeling my daughter move closer to the world. I don't have time for this, Mrs Holloway snapped. The baby is crowning. I need to focus. Then I'll deliver her. Ben moved to the foot of the bed. I was there for the birthing classes. I know the basics. You go get whatever documentation proves you didn't steal me from my birth mother.

15:13 Don't be ridiculous. Get it. I'd never heard Ben raise his voice like that. Neither had Mrs. Holloway. She stared at him for a long moment, her expression cycling through surprise, anger, and something that might have been fear. Fine, she said, if that's what it takes to put this nonsense to rest. She left the room. Ben took her place at the foot of the bed, his hands trembling, his face pale.

15:42 I don't know if I can do this, he said. You can. I gripped the rails of the bed, feeling another contraction building. You have to. She's coming whether we're ready or not. Rachel, if what you're saying is true, we'll deal with it later. Right now, I need you to catch our daughter. He nodded, took a breath, positioned his hands. Push, he said. I pushed. The next few minutes were chaos and pain and terror. Ben talked me through it, breathing, pushing, resting. He was clumsy and scared, but he was there. He was trying. And when our daughter finally emerged, screaming and red-faced and perfect, he caught her with shaking hands and laid her on my chest.

16:34 Oh my God, he whispered. Oh my God, Rachel. She's beautiful. I held her. This tiny, squalling creature, who had been part of me for nine months, and was now suddenly, impossibly separate. Her eyes were squeezed shut. Her fists waved in the air. She was furious at being born. She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. We need to cut the cord, Ben said, and she needs to be cleaned, and I'll do it. Mrs. Holloway stood in the doorway. She held a folder in one hand, the documentation Ben had demanded. But her eyes were fixed on the baby in my arms. Give her to me, she said.

17:18 I need to examine her. Make sure she's healthy. She's fine. I pulled my daughter closer. She's breathing. She's crying. She's fine. You're not qualified to make that assessment. There could be complications you can't see. Give me the baby.

17:37 No.

17:39 Mrs. Holloway's smile didn't waver, but something in her eyes went cold. Bend. Tell your wife to hand over the baby. Ben stood frozen between us, his wife on the bed, clutching their newborn, the woman who'd raised him demanding he take the child away. Show me the documentation, he said. First the baby. Show me. Mrs. Holloway's jaw tightened. She threw the folder on the bed, papers scattering across the sheets.

18:11 I looked down at them while holding my daughter close. Adoption papers with Ben's parents' names. A birth certificate showing him as their biological child. Everything neat, official, properly stamped and signed. There, Mrs Holloway said. Satisfied? Now give me the baby. These are forgeries. Ben picked up the papers, studying them. I recognise my mother's signature. This isn't it.

18:39 The loops are wrong. The pressure is different. After 35 years, you think you can identify... I have letters, birthday cards, notes she wrote me. I know what her handwriting looked like, and this isn't it. He looked up at Mrs. Holloway, and for the first time, I saw recognition in his face. Not proof, not yet, but the beginning of belief. Who am I? He asked quietly. Who am I really? You're Ben Torres. Susan and Howard's son, I delivered you myself.

19:15 Did you? Or did you deliver me to them? Mrs. Holloway's expression flickered, that warm grandmother mask slipping just for a moment to reveal something colder underneath. This is absurd. I don't have to defend myself against the ravings of a mentally unstable woman and a husband who should know better.

19:35 She stepped forward. Give me the baby.

19:38 Now.

19:38 Now. before I call the sheriff and have you both arrested for endangering a newborn. Stay away from us. I was sitting up now, my daughter pressed against my chest. every maternal instinct screaming at me to run ben we need to go right now you're not going anywhere mrs holloway moved toward the door not to leave but to block it you've just given birth you're in no condition to travel and that baby needs proper examination by a qualified medical professional. I'll take her to a hospital, a real hospital, one you don't control. There's no hospital I don't have colleagues at, no doctor in three counties who wouldn't trust my judgment over yours. She smiled again, but the warmth was gone. You're a stranger here, Rachel, an outsider,

20:33 and you've spent the last two weeks making yourself look paranoid and unstable. Who do you think people will believe? Before I could answer, I heard footsteps on the stairs. Heavy footsteps. More than one person. That will be the sheriff, Mrs Holloway said. I called him while I was getting the documentation. Told him there was a situation with an unstable mother who might be a danger to her newborn.

21:00 Carmen burst through the door. She wasn't alone. Behind her were two men I didn't recognize. Not sheriff's deputies. but strangers in plain clothes. One of them was holding a camera. Rachel Torres? The man with the camera asked. I'm David Chen, Chicago Tribune. Your sister called me two days ago about a story. Mind if we ask some questions? Mrs Holloway's face went white. This is a private residence, you have no right. We have every right to be here, Carmen said.

21:45 Rachel invited us, and unless you want to physically remove a journalist and his photographer from your home, I suggest you step away from that door. For a long moment, nobody moved. Then Mrs Holloway stepped aside. It wasn't surrender, I could see that in her eyes. It was tactical retreat. She was already calculating her next move, already planning how to spin this, how to discredit me and Carmen and the Tribune reporter. But for now, the path was clear.

22:18 Help me up, I said to Ben. He helped me to my feet. I was shaking, bleeding, exhausted, but I was standing. My daughter was in my arms, and for the first time in weeks, I wasn't alone. We walked out of Mrs Holloway's house together. Me and Ben and Carmen, the journalist and photographer following behind. The afternoon sun was bright after the dimness of the birthing room. Real. Clean.

22:49 This isn't over, Mrs Holloway called from the porch. You can't prove anything. No one will believe you. I turned to look at her. This woman who had terrorised me, threatened me, tried to steal my daughter... I don't need everyone to believe me, I said. I just need enough people to ask questions, and once they start asking, they won't be able to stop. I got in Carmen's car.

23:17 Ben climbed in beside me, his hand on my knee, his eyes still full of uncertainty, but finally, finally, pointed in the right direction. We drove away from Coldbrook. I never went back. The investigation took three years. The Tribune article was the first crack in the wall. It didn't make accusations. Just asked questions. About the discrepancies in birth records.

23:44 About the mothers who'd left town and never returned. About a woman named Elaine Marsh who'd been committed to a psychiatric facility on the word of the same midwife who'd delivered her stillborn son. Other journalists picked up the story. Then law enforcement. then a special prosecutor appointed by the State Attorney General, they found 47 cases. 47 babies, taken from mothers Mrs Holloway deemed unfit and placed with families she'd chosen. Some of the birth mothers were still alive.

24:19 Some of the children, now adults, came forward to demand answers. Ben met Elaine Marsh six months after we left Colebrook. She'd been released from the psychiatric facility when the investigation started, her delusions suddenly looking a lot less delusional. I wasn't there for that meeting. It wasn't my place. But Ben came home afterward and held me for a long time without speaking. Then he went to our daughter's room and watched her sleep for an hour. He never called Susan Torres Mom again. Not out of anger. She was dead, and she'd loved him fiercely. whatever the circumstances of his arrival.

25:01 But he started calling her by her first name, a small act of acknowledgement, a way of making space for the truth. Mrs Holloway was arrested on 47 counts of kidnapping. The trial lasted eight months. She never stopped smiling, that warm, grandmotherly smile, not even when the verdict was read, guilty on all counts. She died in prison two years later, heart attack in her cell. Some of the families she'd helped sent flowers to the funeral. Colebrook survived, barely. The town tried to distance itself from the scandal. We didn't know, we couldn't have known. But the damage was done. Families shattered by revelations. Children learning that the people who raised them weren't their parents. Parents discovering that the babies they'd

25:54 mourned were alive and grown and strangers. No clean endings. No easy answers. Just the slow, painful process of reckoning with 40 years of stolen lives. Lily is five now. She has my eyes and Ben's stubborn chin. She's smart and curious and completely unaware of the circumstances of her birth. Someday we'll tell her about Mrs Holloway, about Coldbrook, about the grandmother she might have had if things had gone differently.

26:26 But not yet. For now, She's just a little girl who loves dinosaurs and hates bedtime and thinks her parents are the centre of the universe. I watch her sometimes, when she's playing or sleeping or just being alive in that intense, present way children have. And I think about all the other children, the 47, the ones who were taken from their mothers and given to strangers, who grew up not knowing who they really were. Some of them found their birth families Some didn't want to. Some of the placements, God help me, might have been better than what their birth mothers could have provided. Not that it excuses anything. Not that Mrs Holloway had any right to make those choices. There are no heroes in this story,

27:17 just victims and survivors, and one woman who thought she knew better than biology, better than law, better than love. I was almost one of her victims. My daughter almost became one of her placements. But we got out. We survived. And every night when I put Lily to bed, I hold her a little tighter than I need to. I tell her I love her. I watch her fall asleep with the absolute peace of a child who has never known fear. Then I close her door and walk down the hall to where Ben is waiting, and we sit together in the quiet of our home, and we remember how close we came to losing everything. Some nights, he still dreams about Coldbrook, about the house where he slept as a child, not knowing it belonged to the woman

28:08 who stole him, about the mother he never knew, and the mother who raised him, and the impossible task of loving them both. Some nights, I dream about that birthing room, about Mrs Holloway's hands reaching for my daughter. about the moment I thought I'd lost her forever. We wake up. We hold each other. We go on. That's all anyone can do, really. Go on and remember.