Seven Months Pregnant, I Went to a Pottery Party—Not Knowing I Was Stepping Straight Into a Nightmare

I’m expecting my second baby, and everyone kept telling me the second pregnancy would hit differently.

“You’ll be more emotional this time,” my mom said, using that calm, confident tone mothers use when they’re waiting for you to prove them right.

I rolled my eyes.

She wasn’t completely wrong.

But the emotional storm I was about to walk into had nothing to do with pregnancy hormones.

It had everything to do with my husband.

During this pregnancy, my only real goal most days was survival. I wanted to sink into the couch with greasy takeout and whatever snack my cravings demanded that hour. Socializing felt exhausting. Hiding felt easier.

But Ava—my best friend and unofficial pregnancy coach—refused to let me disappear.

“I found the cutest pottery studio,” she announced one afternoon while blending me a strawberry smoothie and lecturing me about self-care. My swollen feet were propped up on her coffee table.

“They host pottery parties. You paint something, hang out, relax.”

“We… paint pots?” I asked, already uninterested.

“Maybe pots, maybe bowls, maybe nursery décor,” she said with a grin. “Liv, come on. We can make decorations for the baby’s room.”

I groaned. “Fine. But you’re buying whatever the baby wants afterward.”

“Deal,” she laughed. “I already told Malcolm to stay home with Tess.”

That made me pause.

Ava had never been Malcolm’s biggest fan. The fact she’d coordinated with him ahead of time told me how determined she was to get me out of the house.

When we arrived, the studio was lively. At least fifteen women, maybe more. Wine glasses, paint palettes, laughter echoing off the walls. It was meant to be fun—a break from real life.

Ava and I settled in, dipping brushes into pastel colors. Conversation drifted easily, eventually landing on birth stories. Some women shared their own experiences. Others told dramatic stories about relatives and midnight deliveries.

Then one woman—brunette, restless energy, a smile that felt stretched too thin—started sharing hers.

“My boyfriend left me on the Fourth of July,” she said. “Right in the middle of a movie.”

A few women gasped playfully. She laughed bitterly.

“He got a call. Said his sister-in-law Olivia was in labor. The whole family was rushing to the hospital. He had to go.”

My heart stumbled.

Tess was born on July 4th.

And I was Olivia.

Ava and I exchanged a glance.

Coincidence, I told myself. It had to be.

But the woman kept talking.

“Six months later, I went into labor too,” she said. “And guess what? Malcolm missed it.” She shook her head. “He said he couldn’t leave because he was babysitting his niece, Tess.”

My grip tightened around the paintbrush.

Ava leaned closer and whispered, “What are the odds?”

My voice felt distant when I spoke. “Your boyfriend’s name is Malcolm?”

She nodded.

My hands trembled as I unlocked my phone and showed her my wallpaper—Malcolm, Tess, and me, my pregnant belly just starting to show.

Her face changed instantly. Confusion first. Then horror.

“That’s… your husband?” she asked.

I nodded slowly.

She stared at me like the floor had disappeared beneath her feet.

Then she said the words that shattered everything.

“He’s my son’s father too.”

The room spun.

The laughter around us dulled into background noise. The bright pottery studio suddenly felt suffocating.

Not only had my husband cheated.

He had a child with her.

“Water,” I whispered, and Ava rushed off immediately.

The other women sat frozen as the truth settled over the table.

I barely remember getting to the bathroom. I just remember gripping the sink, staring at my reflection, feeling my stomach twist with something far heavier than pregnancy discomfort.

Five weeks.

I was due in five weeks.

I didn’t have space for this kind of devastation.

That night, I confronted Malcolm.

There was no dramatic denial. No elaborate lies. Just tired, reluctant honesty.

Yes, there had been an affair.
Yes, there was a child.
Yes, he had tried to “manage it.”

Each confession felt like another fracture spreading through the life I thought we had built.

I asked him how he could nearly miss Tess’s birth. How he could stand beside another woman while I believed we were building a future together.

He had no answer that meant anything.

By sunrise, the marriage I thought I had was beyond repair.

Now I spend my days researching divorce lawyers between bites of chocolate and prenatal vitamins.

This isn’t the family I imagined for my children. I never pictured them growing up in separate homes, navigating the reality of a half-sibling born from betrayal.

But I also never imagined staying with someone who could hold my hand through one pregnancy while living a secret life behind my back.

He almost missed our daughter’s birth because he was with someone else.

That’s not something I can forgive.

My children didn’t choose this. None of them did. And I won’t let his deception shape the kind of home they grow up in.

It isn’t the future I planned.

But it will be truthful.

And from this point forward, that truth is enough.