I read your story about OC birth and how you were on vacation. We will be at the beach for 8 days b4 due date and until 1 day after, so I'm hoping for the same scenario. What happened when you all got back? When/how did you see the OC?

Hi Coldday,
It was a very stressful day...the day OC was born. H even asked me what we should do if OW died in childbirth. He wanted us to take the baby and I said wouldn't do that. He was very distraught the whole day. Even though he had made his decision, it was still very hard for him and I didn't know how to help, partly because it was so painful for me!

When we got back from vacation, H began receiving phone calls from OW at his office and on cell phone. She was leaving messages like "how can you do this", "I am very hurt" etc. There was another lovely twist in the plot. MIL went to stay with OW for a month to help take care of the baby! H got nasty messages from her too. (If you haven't read my story, in-laws tried to force H to leave me and my kids and became involved with OW. They threatened to disown him if he didn't leave. They sent horrible, nasty letter to H when OC was born, disowning him....for staying with his family!)

That whole scene after OC was born was difficult for me because I didn't trust my H. He agreed to have NC with OW/OC. But I had zero trust that he would do what he said. So I was very suspicious all the time. Neither of us have ever seen OC. They live 1500 miles away. We don't plan on being part of OC's life.

Even though H had said he would have NC and was committed to me, he had set up a "secret" cell phone for the two of them for "emergencies". About a month later, he decided this wasn't a good idea and gave me the"secret" phone as a gift. I thought it was very sweet until I turned on the phone and about 15 text messages, picture mails and voicemails popped up with OW phone number on it!!! I was just stunned! It was like something from a movie. H panicked and grabbed it out of my hand and deleted all of those and then slithered on his belly over to me saying how sorry he was and told me the whole story. We had many MC sessions about that. And believe it or not, we are STILL paying for HER cellphone bill. He had told me two times it was disconnected, but he lied. We are now fighting about that and I hope to have it resolved.

Anyway, long answer to your question! It was very diffucult after the birth even w/o contact for all the same trust issues and a total lack of control of anything on my part and my insane in-laws. But I am soooo glad he was not there for the birth. He says he does not feel connected to OC and he did everything he could to try to get OW to put OC up for adoption. H considers that OW adopted the baby herself (although we pay CS), since he could not have any input into that decision.

If you can, talk to your H about what you will do on the day OC is born. Be doing something fun to take your mind off of it. For him too. We were hiking to this terrific ice cave and I kept thinking,"I am so glad I am not in labor right now!"

Have you decided on contact? How much do you trust your H? Is he helping you through this? It is extra hard for you that H and OW have the same circle of friends. He needs new friends!

Only you can decide what you want and can live with. I knew I couldn't live with contact, but I was afraid I was being unreasonable or unfair to H. My IC helped me see that I had to say what I could live with and my H would have to make his choice based on that. I am so glad that we don't have C now. Maybe some other time it could work, but at that point OW still wanted my H.

Sorry this is so long. Hope I was helpful in some way! Take care of yourself!

Thanks for your input LBelle.

My H and I have decided on C. I think for me this is possible because I feel H is being supportive, wasn't "in love" with OW at any time and I don't think she wants him. We were separated at the time and she wasn't aware that I thought we were suppsed to be "working things out". I knew we weren't of course and I suspected something, but I obviously didn't know. If anything she probably thinks he's a real [censored] and my guess is she'll get sick of dealing with "us" and move back home (out of state). I obviously don't know what will happen, but my H has assured me that we will make decisions on C together.
As far as his "friends" they are part of a 12-step program and he can't really stay away from that, but they don't run in the same circles or attend the same meetings. It's just that everyone probably knows, which makes it hard for me and he/we could run into her at an event. In other words, we couldn't "pretend" it's not his. It would be hard to move away also because my H owns a business and I have no income, so starting over somewhere else at this point would be near impossible.
Anyway, We will have C and I guess I'll just see how things go. If it is in a way that I can trust him, I will stay. If he pulls some crap at some point or goes against his promise to put me and our children first, I'll have to reevaluate my decision.
Thanks again. I like to hear what works and doesn't work for other people to get some sort of idea of what to expect. My guess from hearing people's stories is that you can't really know, you can only know what you will or won't tolerate and go from there.