That was the day I learned the baby was a girl.
I smiled the entire drive home. I honestly, foolishly believed he would love her the second it became a reality. I went all out that night. I made a nice dinner. I lit candles. I even tied pink ribbons around the dining room chairs. I bought a tiny pink box and tucked the black-and-white ultrasound photo right inside.
When Michael got home, he looked around the room and frowned. "What is all this?" I was nervous enough to physically shake. "Sit down." He gave me a weird look, but he sat. I handed him the pink box. He opened it, pulled out the ultrasound, and stared at it blindly. "What am I looking at?" I beamed. "Our daughter. I'm pregnant."
He went dead still. Then, he shoved his chair back and stood up. He slammed his hand down on the dining table so hard the water glasses rattled. "What did you say?" My smile instantly vanished. "I said I'm pregnant." "With a girl." It wasn't a question. It was an accusation. I nodded slowly. "Yes."
I actually thought he might be pulling some kind of sick joke. "So after everything I've put into this, you give me a girl?" Even now, typing those words out feels insane. "Michael..." "What do I need a girl for?" he snapped, his voice venomous. "I wanted a boy. You knew that." "I didn't choose this," I pleaded. "This is our child. Why does the gender matter?" He let out a laugh, but there was absolutely nothing human about it. "Why does it matter? Are you serious right now?" I stood up, trembling. "You're scaring me." "No, Sharon. I'm telling the truth for once."
I followed him into the master bedroom while he yanked a suitcase out of the closet and threw it on the bed. He whirled around and pointed a finger right in my face. "It was your egg." I just stared at him in horror. To this day, I still don't know if he was genuinely that uneducated about biology, or if he just desperately needed a scapegoat. Either way, he meant every word. "You ruined this," he snarled, throwing shirts into the bag. "You knew what I wanted."
I felt like the floor had completely dropped out from under my feet. "You cannot be serious. I am not raising a daughter," he stated coldly. "You are leaving me because the baby is a girl?" "I'm leaving because you destroyed our marriage." Then he looked me dead in the eyes and delivered the final blow: "Remember that. This is all your fault."
A few months later, I gave birth to Maria. And true to his word, he was just gone. No apology down the line. No phone call the next morning. No second thoughts. Ghosted.
