Birthday Weekend

 

After getting married I learned that some people took their birthdays quite serious and milked as much special treatment out of their day as possible. Hence the term "birthday weekend." This refers to the weekend closest to your birthday that you may choose to schedule more birthday related activities. I rarely, if ever, opted into this. But there I was in January 2023 planning my very own birthday weekend festivities.

If you need a quick recap, I spent the days leading up to my birthday grieving what I thought was the end of the childbearing and baby stage of my life. On my actual birthday (a Wednesday), I went out for dinner with Jon. The day after my birthday (a Thursday), I found out I was pregnant. The day after that (a Friday), Jon and I went out again to eat and then met friends for laser tag. The entire evening leading up to playing laser tag Jon was preoccupied with the "should I, shouldn't I?" game of following through on plans with his nursing school classmates. This guy in my class is in a band playing tonight, I told everyone I'd be there. I let him know I didn't care what he did, while he continued to text whoever it was about whatever he'd do.

Laser tag was fun. We had an awesome turn out. I felt like a cool kid. By the end I was sweaty and ready to go home. Jon was still struggling to decide what he'd do, but eventually settled with coming home as well. He had plans with his classmates the next night (a Saturday), so he would see them then. I was even invited to tag along, they were going to a Drag Burlesque Show! After going out two nights in one week, it was a no brainer to pass. I felt guilty missing bed time and leaving my kids. Jon went and I stayed home.

The next day (a Sunday), there was a gigantic fireside announcing the upcoming Moroni's Quest youth camp planned for that summer. I went and sat by a friend and felt the bittersweet emotion of wishing I could go on this wonderful camp and knowing that I wouldn't because I'd be 7 months pregnant then. At this point in time nobody knew. I hadn't told another soul that I was pregnant. Not even Jon. Remember? He didn't want more kids. He wasn't happy. How the heck was I going to tell him that I got what I wanted and he didn't? While walking to our cars that night, my friend asked in passing if I was still thinking about having another baby. I finally spilled the beans, she was the first soul I told. I'm actually pregnant. I haven't told Jon yet. We're kind of at a low spot in our marriage. Her excitement buoyed me up enough to finally let Jon know that night. 

After getting ready for bed, I put the positive pregnancy test on his nightstand (it had the cover on - I'm not completely disgusting) and tried to fall asleep. I was too excited though. Surely this would be the sort of thing that would bring us back to each other, help us get through the tough spell, get Jon feeling happier again? When he quietly slipped into the room to go to bed I couldn't take it any longer, I think I may have even mentioned there was something on his nightstand he should look at. If I was looking for a certain reaction, what I got definitely wasn't it. 

. . . Man, people hate us. Huh? What he meant was that people must hate us for being able to get pregnant so easily. How long have you known? I told him for a few days, that I just didn't know how to break the news to him. And that was about it. It was obvious he wasn't excited. It would take just over a month for me to understand why. It turns out that the night before (a Saturday), after watching a Drag Burlesque Show, Jon left the venue with a 22 year old classmate and kissed her in the parking lot. And when I would go through his deleted text messages at that time, just over a month later, I would read him telling her that