Childbirth is terrifying under the best of circumstances. You are pushed to the absolute brink of human endurance and you desperately need your partner holding your hand through the chaos. But when you add a tragic history of severe pregnancy loss to the mix, that delivery room becomes a high stakes emotional battlefield. One new dad on Reddit recently shared a story about his decision making process on the day his child was born, and his sheer lack of empathy has the entire internet completely appalled.
The Original Poster is a firefighter who recently found himself in a truly unbelievable predicament. To fully grasp the gravity of his choices, you have to understand his wife’s medical history. The couple had a brutal journey to parenthood. They endured two devastating miscarriages and suffered a heartbreaking stillbirth at thirty seven weeks. Losing a baby that far along is an unimaginable trauma. Naturally, his wife spent her entire current pregnancy absolutely terrified that tragedy would strike again.
When the highly anticipated day finally arrived, the wife went into labor. She called her husband, who was currently on duty at the fire station. Her doctor advised that the delivery would likely take a while. Instead of dropping everything and rushing to the hospital to comfort his traumatized wife, the husband decided to just hang around the firehouse. He justified this by saying they were short staffed and things were busy. That was his first massive failure as a partner.
While he was lingering at the station, chaos erupted. One of his female coworkers received a devastating phone call. Her grandfather had just suffered a massive heart attack and the prognosis was incredibly grim. It was a terrible situation for the coworker, and nobody is denying her grief. But right at that moment, an emergency fire call came through for the squad.
The fire captain looked at the crew and announced that only one person could be spared to leave the shift. It was a direct choice between a man whose traumatized wife was actively giving birth to their rainbow baby, and a woman whose grandfather was passing away. The husband actually looked at his coworker and told her to go. He volunteered to cover the shift so she could say goodbye to her grandfather, actively choosing to abandon his wife in the delivery room.
Predictably, the husband was sent out to fight the fire and completely missed the birth of his first child. He finally strolled into the hospital a full two hours after his little girl was born. He walked into the recovery room, issued a profuse apology, and genuinely expected his wife to just accept his hero complex logic.
The wife rightfully unleashed her fury. She yelled at him, explicitly stating that he let her down during the absolute scariest moment of her entire life. She had to navigate the terrifying delivery of a baby she desperately prayed for, all while completely alone because her husband wanted to be the ultimate nice guy at work. After speaking her mind, she promptly kicked him out of her hospital room.
He was relegated to the hallway and faced three straight days of an icy silence. His wife refused to speak to him about anything other than the basic needs of their newborn daughter. When it was finally time to be discharged from the hospital, she dropped a massive reality check. She informed him she was not coming home. Instead, she packed up their newborn and went to stay with her sister until she figures out what is left of their marriage.
The husband took to the internet seeking validation because his personal logic makes perfect sense in his own head. He explained his reasoning by stating he will have his whole life to be with his child, whereas his coworker only had a few precious hours left with her grandfather. He completely missed the entire point of why he needed to be at that hospital.
He was not supposed to be there just to meet the baby. He was supposed to be there to support the woman carrying the baby. His wife had already delivered a stillborn child. She knew exactly how horribly wrong a late term delivery could go. She needed her protector holding her hand and making sure she survived the physical and mental trauma of childbirth.
The internet did not hold back and unanimously crowned him the absolute ahole. You simply cannot prioritize a coworker’s extended family member over your own wife and newborn baby. Being a good colleague is admirable, but sacrificing your marriage to do it is just reckless. He broke a fundamental layer of trust that might never be repaired. What would you do if your partner skipped your delivery for a coworker? Sound off in the comments below!