My husband Nick and I have been married for 12 years. We\u2019ve spent over 8 of them trying for a baby. Doctor visits, fertility treatments, heartbreak after heartbreak. I\u2019m infertile, and we grieved that\u2026 or at least I thought we did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Enter Emma, his childhood best friend. She\u2019s always been part of our lives. I never liked their closeness, but I respected their history. Until now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Emma got pregnant after a brief fling with a guy whom she barely knew. He bailed. She decided to raise the baby as a single mom. Now, weeks from her due date, she wants Nick to be her birth partner, and not just that, she wants him listed as the baby\u2019s father. Her reasoning? \u201cHe\u2019s the closest thing to a dad the baby will have,\u201d and \u201che doesn\u2019t have kids, so what\u2019s the big deal?\u201d
\u00a9 freepik \/ Freepik<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I said absolutely not. It\u2019s a huge, life-changing decision for our marriage and family. Nick called me \u201cmonster\u201d and \u201ccruel\u201d because I can\u2019t have kids, so this might be his only chance to be a father. He\u2019s already promised Emma he\u2019ll be there for the birth and is even listed as her emergency contact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I begged him to consider what this means for us, he just accused me of being fussy, insisting Emma needs him because she\u2019s scared and alone. Then, a few days later, Emma secretly sent me a sobbing voice message, guilt-tripping me: if I \u201creally cared about Nick,\u201d I\u2019d let him have this one child. She even threatened to spread rumors about Nick being the dad and rejecting the baby if I didn\u2019t agree. I told her not to contact me again, and warned Nick that if he signs the birth certificate, our marriage is over. Now he says I\u2019m giving him an ultimatum and painting him as the villain for \u201cwanting to be there for a helpless baby.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m not resentful of motherhood. I resent being erased, treated like a placeholder while he becomes a father to someone else\u2019s child. And supposedly, I\u2019m supposed to be okay with that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Am I losing my mind, or is this straight-up manipulation? Maybe I\u2019m overreacting to the whole situation?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My husband Nick and I have been married for 12 years. We\u2019ve spent over 8 of them trying for a baby. Doctor visits, fertility treatments, heartbreak after… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"views":184,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14097"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14099,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14097\/revisions\/14099"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}