My Husband’s April Fools’ Joke Made Me Lose Our Baby.

The Day Everything Changed

My husband’s April Fool’s joke made me lose our baby. The envelope arrived at 10:43 a.m. on April 1st.

I was standing at the photocopier in the third floor breakroom when Denise from reception called my name. Her voice had this strange quality to it, like she was trying to warn me about something but couldn’t find the words.

I turned around and saw a man in a dark suit holding a manila folder. He looked official, too official, the kind of official that makes your stomach drop before you even know why.

“Are you Olivia Brennan?” he asked.

His voice was flat, professional, the way people sound when they’re delivering bad news they’ve delivered a hundred times before. I nodded; I couldn’t speak.

My hand went instinctively to my stomach, where our daughter was growing, 16 weeks along. We just found out it was a girl 3 days ago, and we were going to name her Lily.

The man handed me the folder.

“You’ve been served,” he said.

Then he turned and walked away, his shoes clicking against the tile floor. Everyone in the breakroom was staring.

Jessica from accounting, David from sales, and Denise were still standing in the doorway, her hand over her mouth. I opened the folder with shaking hands.

The first thing I saw was the letterhead: Divorce Petition, State of Illinois. Petitioner: Nathaniel James Brennan. Respondent: Olivia Marie Brennan.

The words swam in front of my eyes. I had to read them three times before they made sense.

My husband was divorcing me. My husband who had kissed me goodbye that morning and told me he loved me was ending our marriage.

This was the man who had spent last weekend painting the nursery yellow because we wanted something gender-neutral before we knew. He had held my hand during the ultrasound and cried when we heard the heartbeat for the first time.

I flipped through the pages of legal jargon and grounds for divorce. It cited irreconcilable differences.

Then I saw the attachment, a detailed list of complaints. It mentioned my inability to maintain household standards and a lack of physical attraction since the pregnancy began.

It listed a regret regarding the decision to have a child. It also claimed emotional instability and irrational behavior.

Each word felt like a knife sliding between my ribs. These were things he’d said to a lawyer, things he’d documented, and things he believed enough to put in writing and have delivered to me at work in front of everyone I knew.

My chest felt tight, and I couldn’t breathe right. The room started spinning, and I grabbed the edge of the table to steady myself.

Denise was saying something, but I couldn’t hear her over the rushing sound in my ears. I thought about this morning, Nathaniel making me breakfast: scrambled eggs the way I liked them with cheese and chives.

He had asked if I felt okay and if the morning sickness was better. He had kissed my forehead and said he’d see me tonight.

All of it was a lie, all of it a performance while he planned this.

“I need to sit down,” I said.

My voice sounded far away, like it was coming from someone else. Jessica pulled out a chair, and I collapsed into it.

The papers were still in my hands, and I couldn’t stop reading them. The document stated respondent has failed to meet basic expectations of partnership.

It said petitioner has lost romantic and physical interest in respondent. Petitioner questions his readiness for fatherhood and believes the pregnancy was a mistake.

That last line broke something in me. He thought Lily was a mistake.

Our daughter, who we’d tried for over a year to conceive, was a mistake. Our daughter, whose room was already decorated and who I talked to every night before bed, was a mistake.

Someone handed me water, but I couldn’t drink it. My throat felt closed.

I tried to call Nathaniel, but my hands were shaking too badly to unlock my phone. I tried again, and it rang four times and went to voicemail.

His voice on the recording sounded happy and normal.

“Leave a message and I’ll get back to you,” it said.

I hung up and tried again, reaching voicemail again and again. He wasn’t answering.

He’d had divorce papers served to me at work, and now he wouldn’t answer his phone. I stood up too fast, and the room tilted.

Denise caught my arm.

“You need to go home,” she said.

“Let me drive you,” she offered.

I shook my head. I needed to talk to Nathaniel, needed to understand what was happening, and needed him to explain why everything I thought I knew about our life together was apparently a lie.

I grabbed my purse and headed for the elevator. My boss, Frank, was coming out as I was going in.

He took one look at my face and asked if I was okay.

“I’m leaving,” I said.

I didn’t wait for his response. The elevator doors closed, and I was alone.

I looked down at the papers still clutched in my hand. There were 16 pages of why my husband didn’t want me anymore and 16 pages of why our marriage was over.

The drive home took forever. Every red light felt like torture.

I kept trying to call Nathaniel: voicemail, voicemail, voicemail. I left a message on the fourth try.

“What is this? What are these papers? Call me back, please. Call me back,” I pleaded.

My voice cracked on the last word. I was crying now, hot tears streaming down my face and blurring my vision.

I had to pull over twice because I couldn’t see the road. Other drivers honked at me, but I didn’t care; nothing mattered except getting home and making sense of this nightmare.

The Reveal of the Prank

When I pulled into our driveway, Nathaniel’s car was there. He was home.

Relief flooded through me, followed immediately by terror. If he was home, that meant this was real.

That meant we were going to have the conversation that would end everything. I sat in the car for a full minute, trying to compose myself and trying to stop crying.

I tried to be strong enough to walk in there and face whatever came next. But I couldn’t stop crying, couldn’t stop shaking, and couldn’t stop thinking about those words: regret regarding decision to have child.

He regretted our daughter. I walked in through the front door.

Nathaniel was in the kitchen making a sandwich. He looked up when he heard me come in and smiled that smile.

The same smile he’d given me this morning. The same smile he’d given me when I told him I was pregnant.

The same smile that had made me fall in love with him seven years ago.

“How?” I asked.

My voice came out as a whisper.

“How could you do this?” I asked.

“Do what?” He looked confused.

I threw the papers on the kitchen counter. They scattered across the granite surface we’d picked out together when we renovated 2 years ago.

He looked down at the papers, then he looked back at me, and he started laughing. He was actually laughing, his head tilted back and his hand on his stomach in genuine laughter.

I stood there frozen, watching my husband laugh at the dissolution of our marriage. I watched him laugh at the destruction of our family and at papers that said he regretted our unborn daughter.

“April Fools,” he said between laughs.