{"id":9269,"date":"2026-02-17T11:24:45","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T11:24:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/?p=9269"},"modified":"2026-02-17T11:24:45","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T11:24:45","slug":"seven-months-pregnant-i-joined-a-pottery-party-i-didnt-know-i-was-walking-into-a-nightmare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/?p=9269","title":{"rendered":"Seven Months Pregnant, I Joined a Pottery Party. I Didn\u2019t Know I Was Walking Into a Nightmare."},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cYou\u2019ll be more emotional,\u201d my mom warned in that knowing tone.<\/p>\n

I rolled my eyes.<\/p>\n

She wasn\u2019t entirely wrong\u2014but the hormones weren\u2019t from pregnancy. They were from my husband.<\/p>\n

All I wanted was to hide on the couch with greasy takeout and whatever snack the baby demanded. But Ava, my best friend, dragged me to a pottery night to \u201cget me out of the house.\u201d She\u2019d even arranged for Malcolm to stay home with Tess\u2014unusual, since she\u2019d never liked him much.<\/p>\n

At the studio, women swapped birth stories. Then one nervous brunette shared how her boyfriend left her on July 4th because his sister-in-law, Olivia, went into labor.<\/p>\n

Tess was born on July 4th.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m Olivia.<\/p>\n

My stomach dropped as she continued: months later, when she gave birth, Malcolm missed it\u2014because he was babysitting his niece Tess.<\/p>\n

My husband\u2019s name is Malcolm.<\/p>\n

Hands shaking, I showed her a photo of my family.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s your husband?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

Then she said the words that shattered everything:
\u201cHe\u2019s my son\u2019s father too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not only had he cheated\u2014he had a child with her.<\/p>\n

Five weeks before my due date, I confronted him. No big denial. Just a tired confession. Yes, there was an affair. Yes, there was a child. Yes, he\u2019d tried to \u201chandle it.\u201d<\/p>\n

By morning, my marriage was over.<\/p>\n

Now I\u2019m looking up divorce lawyers between chocolate cravings and prenatal vitamins. This isn\u2019t the family I imagined. My children didn\u2019t choose this.<\/p>\n

But I won\u2019t stay with a man who nearly missed our daughter\u2019s birth because he was building a secret life.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the future I planned.<\/p>\n

But it will be honest\u2014and that\u2019s enough.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cYou\u2019ll be more emotional,\u201d my mom warned in that knowing tone. I rolled my eyes. She wasn\u2019t entirely wrong\u2014but the hormones weren\u2019t from pregnancy. They […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9270,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9269"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9271,"href":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9269\/revisions\/9271"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepatswalk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}