My husband kept visiting our surrogate alone, claiming he just wanted to “check on the baby.” But when I hid a voice recorder in his jacket and heard what he was saying behind my back, my heart sank. He wasn’t merely lying to me; he was planning something devastating. I can’t have children.
When we first started trying, my husband, Ethan, held me through every negative pregnancy test. He’d pull me close, press his lips to my forehead, and say, “We’ll try again,” like it was the most natural thing in the world.
But after the fourth failed treatment, something changed.
We stopped talking about baby names. The nursery we’d spent an entire Sunday planning became just another storage room. The topic of children became something we avoided entirely.
I started noticing the way Ethan looked at families in restaurants. He’d stare for a brief moment, and the second he caught me watching, he’d quickly look away. He never said a word. Neither did I. That was the real problem.
We both worked from home, and sometimes it felt like we spent our days tiptoeing around each other.
We orbited each other politely, carefully. One evening, after nother doctor’s appointment, I sat on the edge of our bed and spoke aloud.
“Maybe we should stop trying.”
Ethan stood by the window, back to me. “I don’t want to give up on having a child.”
A few weeks later, he came home carrying a thick stack of documents, excitement in his eyes. “I’ve been researching surrogacy.”
I stared at the papers, then at him. For a moment, I thought maybe we were going to be okay.
He handled everything from that point: the agency, the lawyers, the interviews.
Eventually, he introduced me to Claire. She was warm and easy to like, already a mother of two.
Contracts were signed. The embryo transfer worked.
Claire was pregnant.
For the first time in years, Ethan and I felt like a real family again, finally building something together after so long watching it fall apart. At first, we visited Claire together, bringing vitamins, groceries, and a pregnancy pillow I’d spent 40 minutes choosing online.
Family
Claire laughed and shook her head. “You two are spoiling me.”
But a few weeks later, Ethan started going alone.
One afternoon, he kissed my forehead, grabbed his keys, and called back, “Sweetheart, Claire mentioned she might be running low on vitamins. I’ll bring her some.”
“Now?” I asked.
“It’ll only take an hour.”
The visits became more frequent—during the workday, late evenings, weekends.
One Saturday, I was at the stove stirring when he rushed through the kitchen, already pulling on his jacket.
“Love, I’m going to check on Claire and the baby.”
“You just saw her two days ago,” I said.
He laughed, the kind of laugh you make at something a little absurd. Then he was gone before I could even step away from the stove.
That kept happening.
Once I grabbed my coat. “Wait, I’ll come with you.”
Ethan paused in the doorway. “You don’t have to.”
That stung. Sometimes he returned with small updates.
“She’s craving oranges.”
“Her back is bothering her.”
“The baby kicked today.”
