Eight Lost Babies: My Husband's Deadly Secret

1: 1

The eighth failed pregnancy, and once again Derek Gilbert performed the D&C on me with his own hands.

Derek, I'm so sorry.

On the operating table, I couldn't hold back the sound of my crying.

His hands never paused, but his voice stayed gentle, soothing.

Shh. There'll be more chances.

After the procedure, I lay on the hospital bed to rest.

Worried I'd be bored, Derek made a point of handing me his tablet to pass the time.

I hadn't meant to pry into anything of his.

But a message popped up, and before I could stop myself, I'd tapped into it.

Derek, man, this is the eighth time. Don't actually leave yourself without an heir.

Vivi doesn't want me having kids with anyone else. I have to think about how she feels.

Still, you can't keep giving your wife mifepristone every single time. Can't you just use some kind of protection?

We're both men. You get it.

The conversation ended, but I sat there staring at the screen, unable to come back to myself.

Four years of marriage. Eight failed pregnancies.

So it had all been my beloved husband, the gifted OB-GYN, feeding me the drug with his own hands.

Derek, you are so cruel.

And me I can't love you anymore.

Derek pushed the door open. I didn't have time to wipe the tears off my face, only to swipe the screen over to a video.

He still thought I was crying because I'd lost the baby, and he gathered me close, gentle as ever.

"Don't be so upset. You're recovering right now, you can't cry."

"I've gotten you time off. Just rest and get well."

I set the tablet down, pulled out of his arms, turned over on the bed, and squeezed my eyes shut.

The Derek after our marriage was nothing like the cool, distant man he'd been before.

He'd turned gentle and thoughtful.

For a while I thought that was love. It never occurred to me that from the very start it was guilt.

"I've spoken to Gillian Lambert. Call her if you need anything. I'll go make you some shredded-meat porridge."

"You've hurt your body. You need to take care of it."

After Derek left, I opened the tablet again and used my phone to take photos.

The tears streamed down my face all over again.

Four years of marriage, and this was the eighth failed pregnancy.

I'd thought it was my body that was the problem, that all these years I'd been drinking the recovery tonic tea to fix myself.

The bitter medicine was hard to swallow, but I thought of Derek, thought of the child that never stayed.

I forced myself to drink down bowl after bowl of it.

Four years, three times a day, never missing a single dose.

So it had all been a joke.

It wasn't my body. It was a person's heart.

Around noon, Derek came back.

"Charity Henson, are you awake? I brought the porridge."

I opened my eyes and looked at him. He hadn't come alone. There was a woman with him.

She came forward, greeting me warmly.

"Hello. I'm Vivienne Lawson, Derek's classmate from college."

"I just got back to the country yesterday and wanted to see my old friend. I had no idea you were in the hospital."

"I came in a rush and didn't bring a gift, so please don't take it the wrong way."

Vivienne. So this was the Vivi Derek talked about. Strikingly beautiful. She had exactly the kind of face a man might not be able to forget.

I lowered my eyes and hid the hatred in them.

Seeing that I didn't answer, Derek picked up the thread himself, easily.

"Charity isn't like that. She won't mind."

Under the blanket, my hand clenched tight.

I did mind. Not that she hadn't brought a gift. I minded her, all of her.

Derek didn't notice my expression. He kept talking as he opened the thermal container.

The lid came off, and a familiar smell filled the whole room.

Vivienne leaned in.

"That smells wonderful. I never would've guessed, Derek you can cook this too?"

"I skipped breakfast this morning. Just the smell of it makes my mouth water."

Derek gave a soft laugh.

"Have some."

Vivienne waved her hands quickly.

"No, no, I couldn't. This is for your wife. How could I eat it?"

Derek put the bowl into her hands.

"You've never had it. Try it. I'll just make her another batch."

There was something forceful in the way he did it.

This was a Derek I'd never seen.

To me, he was always considerate.

When I was sick and couldn't eat, he'd say, then don't eat for now.

When I had my period and didn't want the ginger tea, he'd say, then just lie down for a while.

But with Vivienne, he was forceful.

He wouldn't let her sit there hungry.

Under the blanket, my hand slowly loosened.

The bowl of porridge had gone to Vivienne. And this man had gone to Vivienne too.

2: 2

Three days after the procedure, I was allowed to go home to rest.

Looking at the gifts laid out on the bed, for the first time I felt how cruel it all was.

Every time I miscarried, Derek would buy a baby item as a gift.

He would hold me so carefully.

"Charity, once we have our baby, all of these will be presents from his older brothers and sisters."

Back then, I cried and nodded, and said yes.

I tucked them away in the cabinet like treasures.

But this time, all I felt was that I was a joke.

And my husband was the one who had made me into one.

Early the next morning, an unwelcome visitor showed up: Vivienne.

Derek had barely opened the door when I heard a dog barking.

"Why did you bring a dog?"

Vivienne bent down, grinning, and set the dog inside.

"I was worried your wife was too heartbroken. They say dogs comfort the soul, so I bought her one."

Derek stepped aside.

"Come in and sit first."

The dog caught the smell of the food on the table and kept bounding toward it.

Terrified, I pulled my feet up onto the chair.

"Derek, get it away from me."

Before Derek could move, Vivienne's eyes went red.

"Do you not like dogs? Or is it me you don't like?"

"Derek and I really are just old classmates. Please don't misunderstand."

Derek, mid-step toward me, stopped, turned back, and pulled out a tissue to hand her.

"Don't cry. Charity doesn't dislike it, she's just a little scared."

Only then did Vivienne's tears turn to a smile.

"Don't be scared, he's very well-behaved."

But nobody took the dog away from the table.

I'd been bitten by a dog as a child, and the sight of one still terrified me.

The next time I called Derek's name, my voice was already breaking.

"Derek, get it away."

Only then did it register with him. He scooped up the dog and shut it in the bedroom.

He patted my back and soothed me in a low voice.

"There, it's shut away now. Don't be scared."

Then he turned to Vivienne.

"She's always been afraid of dogs. She'll be fine once she gets used to it."

I shook my head.

"I don't want it here. Make her take it away. Take it away."

But Derek leaned down and murmured in my ear.

"It's a gift, it wouldn't be nice to refuse. I'll give it away once she leaves."

Vivienne got up and walked to the bedroom.

"Since your wife is frightened, I'll take him with me after all."

I sat on the chair, trying to shake off the fright the dog had given me.

I didn't stop Vivienne from going into the bedroom.

A moment later her voice came from inside.

"Wow, this looks so good on you!"

Vivienne came out holding the dog, and what the dog was wearing was one of the baby outfits Derek had bought.

She held the puppy up high, showing it off to us.

"Well? Cute, right? It fits perfectly."

My face went cold in an instant.

"Take it off."

"What?"

"I said take that outfit off the dog."

Vivienne looked at Derek, all wounded innocence.

Derek opened his mouth, and it took him a long moment to get any sound out.

"Just let it go, Charity. I'll buy a new one."

"You know perfectly well those clothes were bought for the baby!"

"Once we have a baby, I'll buy him plenty more clothes. Do you really want the baby fighting a dog over one outfit?"

I stared at Derek, dazed. So even our baby couldn't measure up to a dog?

Thinking of those chat logs, I gave a bitter little laugh.

Right. My baby, the one who would never even be born, how could it ever compete with the woman he loved's dog.

But that was the little outfit meant for my baby. What right did she have to put it on a dog?

I stubbornly demanded that Vivienne take the clothes off, and, forgetting even my fear of the dog, I moved to strip them off myself.

But Derek held me back, pinning me so I couldn't get near.

Vivienne looked at me, then at Derek, and bolted out the door with the dog in her arms.

"Derek, don't fight, you two. I I'll come again another day."

But the outfit on that dog was never taken off.

3: 3

The fight drained out of me.

What did it matter. If I couldn't even keep a baby, what was one set of baby clothes.

Derek let go of me and strode toward the door.

"Vivi just got back to the country. She's still finding her feet. I'll walk her out."

I didn't answer him. There was no point answering him anymore.

Someone who'd just come home and didn't know the area had gone to the trouble of buying a dog and delivering it to our door.

Derek, love really did make him blind. He couldn't see through a trick this small.

Or he simply didn't want to.

I stopped chewing on it. I took out my phone and quickly set up some apartment viewings.

My body hadn't fully recovered, but I couldn't stand sharing a room with him another day.

A whole day of looking, and I finally settled on a place.

That night I got home and lay across the bed, worn out.

But underneath it there was a thread of relief.

I was finally leaving. Since I'd learned the truth, every minute in this room had felt like suffocating.

In the middle of the night, Derek's phone called me.

I picked up, and the voice on the line was Vivienne's.

"Charity, Derek's had too much to drink. Could you come get him?"

I was about to say I couldn't when Derek's voice came through from her end.

"Don't you know? It was because you got married so suddenly, because you broke my heart, that I rushed into marrying Charity."

"But you're the one I love."

His words were slurred, his tongue tripping over itself, and still the confession came out clear as day.

I heard a scuffle on the other end, like someone being shoved off.

Then Vivienne's voice.

"Get up, you're crushing me."

The sound after that turned crisp and close.

"Charity, don't take it to heart. He's rambling. Whatever we were is long in the past."

So back then, when he suddenly said yes to me, it was because Vivienne had gotten married.

And I'd been foolish enough to think I was the one who'd waited out the storm and won him.

This was the first time Derek had ever gotten drunk like this.

It turned out it wasn't that he couldn't lose control. It was just that the person who could make him lose control was never me.

I lifted a hand and wiped away tears I hadn't noticed falling.

"I'm not well. I can't come get him. Figure it out yourself."

I hung up, dragged out my suitcase, and started folding my clothes.

After dawn, Derek sent a message.

I'm sorry, Charity. Old classmates' reunion, I got carried away and had too much.

I'm heading to work now. I'll come home tonight and cook for you.

The class reunion happened once a year, and only this year had he drunk himself into that state.

Because of Vivienne.

A heart I thought had already been broken through kept clenching, wild and raw.

I washed up, then stood at the door with my suitcase in hand.

I looked around the room that had once been so full of love.

Now every corner of it was a shadow of the lie.

I slid the ring off my finger and set it on the shoe cabinet.

I shut the door and walked out without looking back.

4: 4

When Derek got home, the apartment was quiet.

He didn't see me in the living room, so he called out twice.

"Charity? Charity?"

Changing his shoes, he braced a hand on the shoe cabinet, and it felt like he'd pressed down on something.

He looked closer. It was my wedding ring.

He stared at it, disbelieving, then pulled out his phone and called me.

The screen lit up with the word 'Husband.'

I was silent for a moment, but I still picked up.

Derek let out a breath.

"Charity, where did you go? Why did you take off your ring?"

I looked down at my finger. There was still a mark at the base of it, worn in from years of wearing the ring.

It would fade in time. Along with my love for Derek, it would fade.

"I know everything now."

Derek still hadn't caught on.

"Know what?"

"You and Vivienne."

The line went quiet for a long moment. I was about to hang up when he finally spoke.

"Vivienne and I did date, yes, but that's all in the past."

"Now, you're the one who's my wife."

"You say I'm your wife."

"Then how do you explain the babies I kept losing?"

He was still making excuses.

"Our bodies just aren't strong, that's why the pregnancies didn't hold. Haven't we been treating it all this time?"

"Don't rush it. This kind of thing doesn't happen overnight."

"If you really love kids that much, we could always adopt."

In the end I couldn't hold it in, and I broke down crying into the phone.

"Derek, you bastard!"

"Is it really a health problem, or did you just never want children? You know exactly which it is!"

He drew several deep breaths. That was his habit when he was keeping his feelings down.

"Fine, I didn't want children. I just wanted a few more years with only the two of us."

"I just wasn't ready to be a father. Is that so wrong?"

I lost it and smashed the water glass by my hand, screaming into the phone until it tore out of me.

"Is it that you don't want to be a father, or that you don't want to hurt your precious Vivienne?"

"You could have used protection."

"But for your own pleasure, and to keep feeding me those false hopes,"

"you didn't care what it did to my body. You let me miscarry, over and over."

"Four years. How many shots I took, how much medicine I swallowed. You don't know?"

"You watched me suffer with your own eyes, and still you let me hope, then crushed it."

"Derek, you don't even deserve to be called human!"

He clearly hadn't expected me to know it all so clearly. When he spoke again, there was a stammer in it.

"I... I did it because I saw you, saw how badly you wanted a child."

"You tried so hard for one. I... I couldn't bring myself to say it."

I laughed, and the laugh grew louder and louder.

"You couldn't say it, so you watched me lie on that operating table, again and again."

"Every time you did the D&C with your own hands, didn't your conscience ever hurt?"

"Derek, let's get divorced."