The day I followed my husband, I expected to catch him in a lie. What I found instead uncovered a part of his past that left me shaken and questioning everything I thought I knew about him.
If you told me five years ago that I’d be this exhausted and emotionally drained over something I used to dream about, I wouldn’t have believed you.
My name’s Ashley. I’m 40, and I live just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina.
I work as a high school counselor, and my husband, Jason, who’s 42, is a regional manager for a large furniture chain.
We met at a friend’s Fourth of July BBQ. He was wearing the ugliest Hawaiian shirt I’d ever seen and trying to grill veggie burgers on a propane tank that had already run out.
He had no idea what he was doing, but he made me laugh so hard I got barbecue sauce in my hair. That pretty much set the tone for our relationship. He charms, I roll my eyes, and secretly, I love every bit of it.
We’ve been married for almost four years, and we were together for two years before that.
So altogether, we’ve spent six years as a couple, and most of that time has been focused on one thing: trying to have a baby.
I don’t think people truly understand how soul-crushing it is to try and fail month after month, carrying the weight of hope, disappointment, and tears, only to start the cycle all over again.
We tried everything. Fertility clinics, acupuncture, strict diets, and expensive supplements. If it was out there, we gave it a shot.
I even gave up caffeine for a full year. And being a high school counselor without coffee is just asking for trouble.
Doctors weren’t exactly hopeful. I remember one, with the gentlest eyes, saying, “You may want to consider other paths to parenthood.
Your chances are very slim.” That one crushed me the most. Still, Jason never let us give up. He always said, “It’ll happen.
I feel it.”
And one random Tuesday morning — it did.
I took a test, mostly just to quiet the what-ifs buzzing in my head. And there it was: a faint pink line. I blinked, thinking it was one of those weird, faulty tests.
But the second test showed the same. My hands were shaking. My knees gave out, and I sank to the bathroom floor.
Jason found me sitting there, crying so hard I couldn’t speak. He thought something was wrong, but when I showed him the test, he pulled me into his arms and laughed. Full belly laughter.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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