My husband and I have been married for 10 years. We\u2019ve tried for a child for over 7 of them. Endless doctor visits, fertility treatments, and heartbreaks. Turns out I\u2019m infertile. We grieved that together, or at least I thought we did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And here she is. His childhood best friend, Leah (34F). She\u2019s been around our entire marriage. I never liked how close they were, but I respected their history. Until now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leah got pregnant after a short relationship with a guy who bailed the moment she told him. Now, weeks from her due date, she asked my husband to be her birth partner. That alone already made me feel weird, but then came the real kicker: she wants him to be on the birth certificate.
As the baby\u2019s father. Because \u201che\u2019s the closest thing to a dad the baby will have\u201d and \u201che doesn\u2019t have kids of his own anyway, so what\u2019s the big deal?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was stunned. I told my husband, absolutely not. That\u2019s a massive, life-altering decision that affects me, our marriage, and our family. He said I was \u201cbeing selfish\u201d and \u201cjust bitter\u201d because I can\u2019t have children. He told me this might be his only chance to be a father, even if it\u2019s not biological.
He said he already promised her he\u2019d be there in the delivery room, and she\u2019s even listed him as her emergency contact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I begged him to think about what this means for us. And he just stared at me like I was the problem. He told me Leah needs him. That she\u2019s alone, scared, hormonal, and I\u2019m being \u201ccruel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then Leah made a shocking move. She sent me a voice message. Full-on sobbing, talking about how she thought I was kind and understanding, how I \u201cof all people\u201d should know what it feels like to want a child so badly. Then she dropped this bomb:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf you really cared about Mike, you\u2019d let him have this. Just one child. I\u2019m not even asking for money, just his name. If it means that much, I\u2019ll later tell people the baby\u2019s dad passed away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was like WHAT?! That level of manipulation made my blood boil. I told her never to contact me again, and told my husband that if he signs that birth certificate, he can pack his things and go play house with her permanently. He\u2019s now saying I gave him an ultimatum, that I\u2019m forcing him to choose between \u201cbeing there for a helpless baby\u201d and staying married to someone \u201cwho clearly resents motherhood.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t resent motherhood. I resent being erased like I\u2019m just some barren placeholder while he becomes a father to someone else\u2019s kid, like I\u2019m supposed to be cool with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dear people, am I losing my mind here? Because I feel like I\u2019m being guilt-tripped into letting my husband fake fatherhood to his best friend\u2019s baby and sign a legal document that could tie him to this child \u2014 and her \u2014 for life.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My husband and I have been married for 10 years. We\u2019ve tried for a child for over 7 of them. Endless doctor visits, fertility treatments, and heartbreaks…. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"views":567,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76","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=76"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions\/78"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/77"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}