My husband Stuart never wanted to become a father. He married me happy that I could never get pregnant. So what a surprise when in the new year of 2017 I became pregnant and our whole relationship changed permanently.
The urine test showed two lines and my heart wept for joy and at the same time enormous fear mixed with rage. The rage was a reaction to already having given up hope of ever having a child, our relationship was so well balanced, and we had planned our future. I knew we would drift apart because Stuart had made his stance about having kids of his own very clear.
I was happy about this alone throughout the pregnancy. Our relationship became cold and distant just because Stuart was unable to process it any other way, let alone change his stance throughout the entire pregnancy.
He understood and of course promised that everything would become better once the baby was born, but just watching my belly grow didn’t awaken any fatherly feelings at all. I lived with uncertainty about how things would go for us after the baby was born, and the only thing I could lean on was trusting in his word.
It’s gonna be OK became familiar in our tearful discussions, all the while being realistically aware that nothing can be trusted 100 per cent no matter what the other one says. I believed and hoped that everything would go well, there’s not really anything else to do in that kind of situation. The whole pregnancy was in addition overshadowed by my extremely bad pregnancy nausea, which landed me finally in a hospital bed with a drip in my arm several times. Two days before giving birth.
Fear and despair as well as total loneliness on the farm while puking became a daily struggle. I lived in a nightmare and just counted the days to the agreed due date. The feeling that I didn’t have any control or knowledge about what would happen after the birth took up a lot of energy. However, our love was so strong that I decided to hang on, although a few times it did cross my mind to pack up my things and go home to Mum.
Stuart has a very scientific view of the universe and he thinks the baby is ours only after it is outside of the belly. Our relationship is based on enormous mutual respect, trust, and good communication. All through the pregnancy, we talked openly without judging each other’s thoughts. Still, it was very tough knowing what he really thought deep down about all of this.
I gave him time. I understood his process because it would have been the same if someone had forced me to feel happy about my infertility. Grief and anxiety become enormous when you are not allowed to make your own decisions about these kinds of things related to having children. For me, being infertile, and for Stuart, a surprise baby.