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“While we were trying to have a baby, my husband became a father on his side…”
This afternoon, in the square, I’m a mother like any other
A mother seated on a bench, accompanying her children and enjoying a moment of rest. Gabriel, my 8 month old son, sleeps peacefully in his pram. Right next door, in the sandpit, 2-year-old Lola makes her first pies. Who could have said that one day I would be there,
to share with this little girl a very simple moment of everyday life… Her life began as a turmoil in mine.
When I met Baptiste, it was a real love at first sight. We were teachers in the same college. Very quickly, we lived together. Like all lovers, we shared everything. Two years have passed, peaceful, joyful, carefree, between movies, friends and fiestas. We are married. Then the urge for a baby has come. It seemed so obvious to us that we did not imagine for a second the difficulties that awaited us. At 27, how can we think that nature will not be on our side? Yet the months passed, and all ended in disappointment. This baby we so longed for did not come. After a year, we ended up consulting. The obstetrician didn’t really have any explanations, he refused to talk about infertility. “Don’t be in a hurry. The baby should not be an absolute quest, to which we sacrifice everything. Take care of each other. Words that then resounded like a premonition.
It was getting harder and harder to take
Ovarian stimulation hurt my stomach. I was nauseous, I was tired. Baptiste supported me, of course. He accompanied me to the lab for the analyzes, he was very caring. I could see he was upset: this baby who didn’t come ended up obsessing us. I almost started to feel guilty. I was unable to give her what any woman is capable of, sometimes even without doing it on purpose! Around me, my girlfriends were pregnant without problem, my sister was on her third! We switched to IVF. In my head, I imagined it was going to work right away. I thought only of that, my whole life revolved around dates, my cycles, the “quality” of my oocytes. I would have liked to be a child-bearing machine. It was then that I probably didn’t see anything. Baptiste was absent more and more. Every Saturday, he went to see friends. “Colleagues you don’t know. You can come, of course, but you’re so tired… ”He had grown more distant, I felt he was less involved in our concerns. I found that normal! After all, I couldn’t be very funny! The months went by and looked the same. The distance between us grew. We were arguing. I was crying, I was unhappy. But I couldn’t see anything. One day, there was the absence of too many: Baptiste told me that he was leaving the next day for a week of training, although he had never told me about it before. I said nothing. I couldn’t believe that he abandoned me, when three days later, we tried another IVF! I started to have doubts. At night, while he was sleeping, I did what jealous women do. I took his cell phone and searched. It is nothing to say that the ground has given way under my feet. In an SMS, everything was said: “Baptiste, I am pregnant! What are we going to do ? I put his phone down. I don’t know what I did for the rest of the night.
The next day, when I woke up, I spat everything out. He first denied, then ended up confessing. I screamed, I thought I was going to die. He assured me that it was an accident, a short-lived affair with a colleague, that it was only me who mattered. The worst part was that deep down I almost understood him. In fact, he had gone somewhere else to bring the baby that I couldn’t give him.
The months that followed were appalling
I had stopped the treatments. Baptiste, I could see it clearly, was distraught. I don’t think he really expected that. He swore to me that her affair was over, that he regretted. But this baby? There are no words to say what I was feeling. I moved, then started the process to get the divorce. I didn’t want to hear from him anymore. It was worse than having been deceived, I felt like I had been betrayed, used. Everything was collapsing …
Away from Baptiste, I rebuilt myself, with the help of a shrink. And little by little, although it was hard to admit, I realized that our story was not over. This whole period of treatment, of failures, had been very hard for him. While I was centered on my stomach, I hadn’t seen how unhappy he was. He had cheated on me, of course, but it was with me that he wanted to start a family, not with this woman, who had chosen to “have a baby on her own”.
We started to meet again
We saw each other more and more often. I knew the birth was approaching, I was paralyzed by it. It was scheduled for February. In my building, a neighbor was expecting a baby for the same date. I could see that Baptiste was moved when he saw her, as if he had a thousand questions to ask him… I avoided him, pregnant women disgusted me. And then February arrived. On the day of the birth, he remained locked in the room. The next day, he told me he was going to recognize his child. It was a girl. She was going to be called Lola.
I know, when I tell all this, you think I’m crazy. That I looked for him, that I should have left him. But it’s a long way that I have come! Our story continues, that’s how it is. I accepted that Lola came to our house every other weekend, as with separated parents. At first, of course, I didn’t want to touch her or deal with her. And then, little by little, she managed to find a place for herself. Of course, I’m not saying that it comes naturally to me, that I’m gentle with her. But I accept his presence, I got used to it, even. Over the months, this little brunette, who looks so much like her daddy, has managed to conquer me. And especially, she is already a big sister. Because when she was seven months old, I got pregnant with little Gabriel. One day he will ask me to tell him about this sister who is there on weekends and sometimes during the holidays. It won’t be easy to find the words, I know it. But we will get there: we are a family, and we have already moved mountains!