expecting father holding baby booties
(Photo: Pixabay)

Jacob* and I met in the second year at university; we were introduced through a mutual friend at another friend’s birthday party and it was love at first sight. I found him handsome, articulate, charming, intelligent and thoughtful – everything I yearned for in a boyfriend. In addition, he treated my family wonderfully, and was always respectful and considerate towards my parents.

In my mind, I knew that Jacob was the one I was going to marry… there was no doubt about it. Even my parents had already regarded him as their future son-in-law, and I would regularly chat with my mother about our future wedding plans. However, they were all merely my plans, as I soon found out.

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expecting father holding baby booties
(Photo: Pixabay)

Two years into our relationship, I found that whenever I mentioned the idea of marriage, Jacob would either change the topic, or keep silent. At first, I assumed that he might have been unprepared to talk about it, and waited for a few months before revisiting the issue of marriage. Again, he changed the subject and left me completely stumped. I felt hurt and disappointed, and in my shock I completely avoided mentioning marriage again over the next 12 months.

Despite my failure to bring up the issue of marriage, our relationship was getting stronger, and we were more loving than ever before. Both our careers were taking off and we could afford to take trips, both for leisure and work, together every two to three months. It was after one of these trips, a winter trip to Japan, that I made a decision that changed my fate forever.

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expecting father holding baby booties
(Photo: Pixabay)

A couple of weeks after we returned from that trip to Japan, I discovered my period was three days late, and began to worry. When my period still hadn’t arrived a week after it was scheduled to, I told Jacob about it and asked him what we should do if I really was pregnant. Naturally, I was apprehensive about telling him, as I was well aware of how he wouldn’t even discuss the prospect of marriage. I was very concerned that he might tell me to have an abortion, or even end our relationship altogether.

However, to my surprise, his reaction was completely different from what I had expected. He said, with a wide grin on his face, that if I really was pregnant we must get married right away, and that he would take good care of me and the baby. I was ecstatic! This was exactly what I had been waiting for all these years – to marry Jacob and have a family with him. We spent the next few days happily discussing our wedding plans and the bundle of joy we were expecting, despite the fact that I hadn’t confirmed my pregnancy yet.

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expecting father holding baby booties
(Photo: Pixabay)

A week after I told Jacob the ‘good news’, he had to go off on a business trip to Hong Kong. I stayed back in Singapore, and was busy at work when I suddenly started experiencing painful cramps. I rushed to the toilet and found a large spot of blood on my underwear. Alarmed, I informed my colleague, who sent me to KKH (KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital) where I went straight to the A&E department, worried sick about what had happened to my baby.

While waiting to see the doctor, I called Jacob and told him what had happened. The concern in his voice offered some sense of relief to calm my frazzled nerves, and by the time I was attended to by a doctor, I was less nervous. The doctor then proceeded to deliver the shocking news – that my period had indeed come two weeks late, and that it was absolutely nothing to worry about.

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expecting father holding baby booties
(Photo: Pixabay)

I spent the next two hours in a complete daze. All that excitement and happiness that Jacob and I shared had all been in vain; there was no baby, which meant that it was very likely there wasn’t going to be a wedding either. By the time I came to my senses, I had made a decision to lie to Jacob that I had had a miscarriage. I took the longest, deepest breath I had ever taken, and made the phone call to him in Hong Kong to tell him we had lost the baby.

Jacob sounded disappointed about the ‘loss’, but was more concerned about how I was feeling. He told me that it was okay, we had ample time in the future to have as many children as we wanted, and that I should take care of my health and recuperate well. He told me that once I felt better, we would start preparing for our wedding. It was all so bittersweet; I felt so loved by this amazing man, and yet so guilty about this little lie I was feeding him.

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expecting father holding baby booties
(Photo: Pixabay)

It has been a year since Jacob and I got married, and I am now pregnant with our first child, who is due in June. We are really happy and excited about our upcoming bundle of joy, and our relationship could not be any better. He still doesn’t know I lied about my first pregnancy and miscarriage, and perhaps one day when we are both old and grey, I will tell him the truth.

*Name changed to protect privacy.

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