The birth of my twin daughters was supposed to be the luckiest day of my life. After years of struggling to conceive, holding my babies in my arms felt like a dream come true. But then, that dream turned into a nightmare when my husband accused me of cheating.

The moment my bundles of joy were welcomed into the world, I took a photo of them and sent it to my husband, Mark, the man I believed was the most wonderful person there was. I felt lucky he was the father of my children, or least, I thought so, until he revealed his true face.

Entering the hospital room, Mark was fuming. “What is this Lindsay?” he asked, and I was totally unaware of what he was talking about.

“Mark, is everything okay?”

“Of course it’s not. These can’t be my kids. Did you cheat on me?” he asked as I could hear his voice breaking. “You tricked me, Lindsay. You didn’t tell me you were carrying girls.”

“Mark, why does that matter? They are beautiful and they are perfectly healthy,” I said, still confused by his words and his ridiculous behavior.

“This isn’t what I wanted. I needed boys so they could carry on a legacy and my name.”

As he uttered those words, my heart crushed into a million pieces. I looked at my girls who were sleeping peacefully, unaware that their father rejected them.

At that moment, I was looking at a man I didn’t recognize. Mark never acted like that before, not once.

I tried to calm down, hoping it was just an initial reaction triggered by overwhelming emotions and a state of confusion. But Mark was getting angrier. After pacing up and down the room, clenching and unclenching his hands in frustration, he left and slammed the door.

During my hospital stay, I hadn’t heard from Mark again. He never called and never answered any of my messages. Unaware of what to do next, I took my twin daughters and went to my parents’ place.

A couple of days passed by and there was still no trace of my children’s father. But then, I received a voice message from my mother-in-law, Sharon. She was a stern woman, and I knew she could help me convince Mark to come to his senses.

But the moment I heard the message, I realized things were worse than I anticipated. Sharon also accused me of cheating and of betraying her son for not giving him boys.

I felt like a failure. But then I looked at my girls and I knew I needed to be strong for them. As long as they were by my side, nothing could break me.

During the long nights, amid feeding my twin daughters and changing their diapers, I also made promises I wasn’t sure I could keep. “Mommy’s here, everything is going to be alright,” I’d whisper. But was it?

Since Mark was no longer around, I contacted my lawyer. “With his abandonment, we have a strong case,” he said, giving me a glimpse of hope. “Full custody. Child support. We’ll take care of visitation on your terms.”

Weeks turned into months, and I learned how to live without Mark.

I created a new social media profile where I shared my girls’ milestones. Family and friends shared my posts and commented on my photos, and everything I posted hid an undeniable truth – that my girls’ father was absent from their lives.

Eventually, I divorced him but didn’t let him off the hook – no matter how much he didn’t want to, he needed to take responsibility of being a father.

Then came Sharon’s final message. It could be an apology and a wish to be part of her granddaughters’ lives, or it could easily be yet another insult. But I deleted it without reading it, so I guess I’ll never find out.

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