My husband and my in-laws demanded a DNA test for our son

I never imagined that the man I loved, the father of my son, would look me in the eye and doubt that our baby was his. But there I was, sitting on our beige sofa, holding our little boy while my husband and his parents hurled accusations like knives.

It all started with a look. My mother-in-law, Patricia, frowned when she saw Ethan for the first time in the hospital. “He doesn’t look like a Collins,” she whispered to my husband, Mark, when they thought I was asleep.

I pretended not to hear her, but her words hurt more than the stitches from the cesarean section.

At first, Mark let it go. We laughed about how quickly babies change, how Ethan had my nose and Mark’s chin. But the seed had been planted, and Patricia watered it with her poisonous suspicions at every opportunity.

“You know, Mark had baby blue eyes,” she said deliberately as she lifted Ethan into the light. “It’s strange that Ethan’s eyes are so dark, don’t you think?”

One night, when Ethan was three months old, Mark came home late from work. I was on the sofa breastfeeding him, my hair was dirty and I was exhausted. He didn’t even give me a goodbye kiss. He just stood there with his arms crossed.

“We need to talk,” he said.

Continue reading…