I\u2019m pregnant with my second baby, and everyone warned me this time would be more emotional.
They were right.<\/p>\n
But the hormones didn\u2019t come from my unborn child.<\/p>\n
They came from my husband.<\/p>\n
All I wanted lately was the couch and whatever snack the baby demanded. My best friend Ava refused to let me hide. She dragged me to a pottery night, promising distraction and decorations for the nursery.<\/p>\n
The studio was loud, warm, full of women trading birth stories.<\/p>\n
Then one woman mentioned her boyfriend rushing off on the Fourth of July because his sister-in-law, Olivia, was in labor.<\/p>\n
My daughter Tess was born on July 4th.
I\u2019m Olivia.<\/p>\n
Ava and I froze.<\/p>\n
The woman kept going. Months later, when she<\/em> gave birth, Malcolm couldn\u2019t be there. He was babysitting his niece, Tess.<\/p>\n My hands shook as I showed her my phone \u2014 a picture of my husband, my child, my growing belly.<\/p>\n Her face drained. Then she broke me.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s my son\u2019s father too.\u201d<\/p>\n That night Malcolm confessed. Affair. Baby. Lies he\u2019d been \u201chandling.\u201d<\/p>\n By morning, my marriage was over.<\/p>\n I\u2019m heartbroken. I\u2019m terrified. I\u2019m due in five weeks.<\/p>\n But I won\u2019t raise my children inside a life built on deception.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not the future I planned.<\/p>\n It will be honest.<\/p>\n And that has to be enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019m pregnant with my second baby, and everyone warned me this time would be more emotional.They were right. But the hormones didn\u2019t come from my unborn child. They came from my husband. All I wanted lately was the couch and whatever snack the baby demanded. My best friend Ava refused to let me hide. She …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4288"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4291,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4288\/revisions\/4291"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cThat\u2019s your husband?\u201d<\/p>\n