One day before our seventh wedding anniversary, and six weeks after our first child was born, my husband told me he was having an affair. (The tense matters: having, not had.)

As his confession reverberated in my ears, I rocked our daughter, asleep after her 10th (11th?) nursing session of the day. My nipples ached, my body trembled, my heart shattered.

Tears landed on her H & M onesie, the first item I purchased when I found out I was pregnant after our frozen embryo transfer. I held her steady despite my pain, shifting into the instinctual protective mode of a mother.

“She cannot know I’m crying,” I thought as I stared at my husband in shock. My cheeks were wet, but no sound escaped my lips. There wasn’t anger. Not yet. Only questions: With whom? When? How many times?

In several ways, my story is nothing new. My husband — a J. Crew-wearing, annoyingly nice school administrator — had an affair with a colleague. I was pregnant, tired and focused on preparing for our baby. She was focused on him: flirting on Slack, in his office and during lunch breaks.

I later discovered that other colleagues were suspicious of the affair. When I met her, I had a bad feeling, too. Even our marriage counselor, whom we started seeing after his confession, thought it was odd that the other woman had invited my husband to her house to fix her kitchen cabinets soon after being hired. Not your typical office favor, but it was her first move in a series of intimacy-building actions that created the opportunity for infidelity.

At the time, I thought her request was bizarre, but my husband was always going out of his way to help others. He would lift heavy pieces of furniture for neighbors or pack U-Hauls for friends. He likes working with his hands — my favorite part of him. They looked so big when they held our daughter, his fingers wrapping around her tiny leg as he cradled her like a football.

Like many women, I battled insomnia during my pregnancy. My nightly ritual became Unisom tablets and Emily Oster books. From genetic testing to sleep training, I wanted to be prepared for all of parenting. I was always prepared for everything until now.

In addition to the Unisom, I tried to get in bed early because I knew my body needed rest. My pregnancy was high risk for multiple reasons: I was nearing 40 with Type 1 diabetes and had undergone I.V.F.

My husband, on the other hand, is a night owl, so when he slipped under the covers at 2 a.m. after being with her, I didn’t notice. And even if I had woken up, it wouldn’t have mattered. I never imagined my caring and dedicated husband would do this. I still don’t believe it. And I’m not sure he does either. He told me he felt like a stranger to himself during that time, and to me too.

He is the kind of partner who sits with me on the couch and lets me show him my Pinterest boards. Before the baby, we watched “Jeopardy” every night while eating a dinner we had cooked together from our latest farmer’s market haul. He drove me to my OB appointments and gave me almost every I.V.F. shot, only missing a few injections when he traveled for work. And even then, he arranged for a nurse friend to administer them.

After three years of “just be patient” because “it will happen when it’s supposed to happen,” we became pregnant naturally in January 2021. However, we lost that pregnancy. At the first ultrasound, there was no heartbeat. My husband had to wait in the car because Covid restrictions were still in full swing, so I found myself alone — lukewarm jelly slathered on my bloated stomach — as the nurse apologized for the loss.

Believing we could become pregnant on our own, we tried again and again. Sex became a chore, one we failed at. Ovulation sticks, timed intercourse, negative pregnancy tests. A cycle that forced togetherness while simultaneously driving us apart. A cycle that made my husband feel inadequate, but he never admitted that until we were in couples counseling for the affair.

I wish he had told me. Maybe things would be different if he had, or if I had asked.

“I.V.F. is your best bet,” the doctor said over Zoom after the analysis indicated a low sperm count. When we failed to become pregnant again, we turned to a fertility clinic for help.

In the end, it would take us five years to have a baby, and over $40,000 in out-of-pocket costs. But after the shots, the retrieval, the testing and the waiting, I was pregnant again. We were thrilled. And terrified.

During each ultrasound we held our breath until we heard a heartbeat. Then, we would let out a sigh but only a partial one; we couldn’t allow ourselves to be too happy.

For nine months, I did everything I could to take care of the life inside me. I knew our baby was a girl, and I talked to her more than anyone else. I would tell her about all the things we were going to do together, how I hoped she loved dogs like me, and why I knew she was worth the wait.

When my husband finally told me the whole truth about the affair (several weeks after his initial, incomplete confession), he explained that he first slept with her nine days before our daughter was born.

After five years of hoping and trying and wishing — nine days. We were so close to having it all.

The first night home from the hospital I didn’t sleep. Our daughter refused to stay on her back; therefore, my anxiety refused to let me rest. (I learned it’s called the “newborn curl” after some middle-of-the-night panic Googling.) It turns out my fear of losing her didn’t end when she was born.

Exhausted and desperate, I rented a modern bassinet with electronic monitoring and a built-in swaddle to secure babies on their backs. I could finally close my eyes. And my husband could use the associated app to know when I was awake from the living room couch, his temporary bed since the baby was born (so he could go to work without being a zombie).

The manufacturer doesn’t list “infidelity mode” as a feature in its product description, yet the bassinet’s mobile app allowed my husband to sneak out, be with another woman, and return home before I knew it — all thanks to the real-time report, which revealed when the baby was up or down, making it known when I was, too.

My own mother came to stay with me during the aftermath of “the event,” as we started calling it, which ended with his confession, though some correspondence followed. (Saying “affair” was too painful and still is.) My mother cared for me so I could care for my baby; she was the only person I trusted. When my daughter napped, we talked about “the event.” She was angry when I was angry, sad when I was sad. She had the worst thoughts at night when she tried to sleep, just like me.

My mother understood what I was thinking before I would say the words. She felt what I felt — shocked, confused, heartbroken, and yet still wanting to keep my little family together.

Ultimately, I chose to stay with him, but we changed our entire lives. We left our jobs, took pay cuts, and moved to a new state. Friends questioned my decision, but relationships are never black and white, and there is no single script for how to handle them. I was ready to fight for the life I always imagined. He expressed so much shame and regret and wanted to fight for us too. He even supported me writing this.

Some days, nine months later, I still feel a pain so deep it suffocates me. It starts in my throat, travels through my chest and sits heavily in my stomach. I try to swallow, but my throat feels tighter than normal, as if heartache and oxygen can’t share the same space.

When I cry during our daughter’s naps, I splash cold water on my face to disguise my tears before fetching her from her crib. Forcing a smile, I pause at the nursery door and take a deep breath as I enter.

Although I tried to shield her from this, is it possible she already knows? Maybe.

Regardless, is she helping me heal? Definitely.

As my own mother showed me, there is an indescribable connection between mothers and their children. They feel what we feel.

And motherhood never ends. I can’t protect my daughter forever, but when she does experience heartbreak at four or 40, I will be there to feel it with her. Just as my mother has done for me.

Shelley Akers is a writer in Staunton, Va.

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