Nikki: “There were red flags, I noticed that there were certain things about my husband that were really off”

How I came to know the wrong person

After a long relationship, I was free to party and really let loose for once. Every weekend going out, to festivals, alcohol, drugs, completely wild. I wanted to live for myself and live well too. Until one day in 2017, I came across M on Tinder. We chatted a lot and both loved partying and going out. The moment I actually met him was at a festival at the O2 Arena in London. He was there with friends, but also with his then-girlfriend. These are, by the way, one of the things I found out about later. I didn't know that at the time. We clicked immediately, and he eventually came home with me and a friend to chill. We hit it off so well that he basically never left. I lived by myself. Every weekend or even from Thursday to Sunday he was with me, and sometimes during the week for dinner. He told me that he had a cocaine addiction at the age of 18, but that he had overcome it. I believed him blindly. As our relationship progressed, I felt that I wanted more. Starting a family with M seemed like a healthy next step. We talked about it often. 'It would be nice to have a little one,' we decided together.

The first red flag with my partner M.

I stopped taking the pill, assuming it would take a while. After all, I had been on the pill for 13 or 14 years. Nothing could be less true. I stopped in June and was pregnant by August. M. said just before we were going to a festival: “Do another test”. I did and it was positive. “How so? I have no symptoms at all”, I wondered. That day I decided to go to the festival anyway and soon saw how M. changed. He was snorting little bumps off a key one after another. I felt alone that day and actually wanted to go home because I was so tired. According to M., I was nagging and should just stay. The days after were strange. At one point, he even asked me if he was the father. I was astonished. “Are you serious?”, I asked in surprise. He looked at me and replied: “Yes”. I remember saying: “Act normal. Who do you think I am?”. This was actually the first red flag I should have noticed. However, at that time I thought M. was just insecure.

Bad news at the ultrasound

By that time, I was 6 weeks pregnant and was going to have the first ultrasound at 8 weeks. I had no complaints, except for fatigue. When we got the first ultrasound, it was immediately negative. We saw a small circle with something in it. There was a heartbeat flickering, but not fast enough. The sonographer said, "It could be that you are still too early in the pregnancy, but actually this does not look good." M. and I were very sad. The miscarriage followed soon after. I then made the decision to go back on the pill. I wanted to process this and see if we could find another house in the meantime, one with more bedrooms. In those 8 or 9 months that I was back on the pill, we did a lot of fun things. We started going to festivals again, which was our thing.

Several things were wrong with M.

M. was inseparable from his phone. I wasn't the type to want to look at someone's phone, but still, I found it odd. Whenever I mentioned it, he would always say I was acting crazy and that nothing was wrong. I remember once when I was at work, I received a Facebook message from a lady. I immediately knew who it was: his ex-girlfriend. She told me that on the night I first met him, they were still in a relationship and that she was there too. I didn't believe it. "Probably just an excuse to make me jealous," I thought. She also said that he still regularly sent her photos of himself, including intimate ones. She even forwarded one of those photos to me. At that moment, I became so angry that I turned completely red. I was done with it all and called him right away. I told him what had happened. Of course, he said it was all nonsense, that she was out of her mind. "She's doing this to destroy us," he concluded.

Without consulting, he bought an apartment

In the days that followed, he had seen a nice apartment. Without consulting me, he had scheduled a viewing with his parents. In the end, I did go along, but I found this so strange. He also arranged the purchase without me. Everything was therefore in his name. I was so angry about this because I had already given notice on my rental house. I threatened to retract the notice and that he would have to live there alone otherwise. He begged me to cancel the rental house. I was everything to him and he wanted to continue together. He cried and begged me to please choose him. I fell for this and so we moved. However, I was still offended that he had put everything in his name (in hindsight, this turned out to be a good thing).

In the new house, he quickly made changes

He often did strange things like throwing out a trash bag late in the evening or even at night. However, things were getting better between us. We decided to stop taking the pill again. A few months later, I was pregnant again. We were so happy, but I was also scared. I called the midwife. She said I could come in for an ultrasound at 6 weeks. The ultrasound was good! A beautiful large ring with an embryo and a beating heart. We were over the moon, finally things were going well. I quickly noticed that I sometimes bought little things for the baby. M. didn't, he was more preoccupied with himself. I also often noticed that he was out of money. We both had our own bank accounts. I had a pretty good job at the time, and so did he. "How can this be," I wondered. I often had to pay for the groceries because he had nothing left. I also transferred 450 euros to him every month for the house. At one point, I was so fed up. It just couldn't be that he had no money left. He was sitting at the kitchen table and I was standing in the kitchen. I asked him how it was that he ran out of money every time. I could tell by his face that he was hiding something. I asked again. Then he said he had debts. With a dealer. "A dealer?", I stammered, "how much?". He replied with 900 euros. I was stunned. I didn't know what to do.

The cat's out of the bag: he was addicted to drugs

I said he could take money from our baby's savings account to pay it off and stop. He did. I thought it would be over with that. It was almost December by then, the baby was doing well and the NIPT was also fine. We were about to go on vacation to Cape Verde with his parents soon. I often noticed that he acted strangely in the evening. I sometimes asked if he was using something. He always denied it. I knew he had bad friends who all used drugs. Sometimes I would find a packet of drugs, but then he would say it was for or from someone else. One evening, it happened again. I was sitting in the living room and he went to the toilet. I just heard him snorting something. He came out and I asked what he was doing. He immediately said he hadn't done anything, but I persisted. He admitted it. And this time not coke, but ketamine. He had become addicted to ketamine. The ground fell away from under my feet. Everything became clear. Why he was often absent in the evenings. Why he was acting weird. I wanted to help him, because we were having a baby together. I wanted to take care of our child together.

Suddenly, there was trouble on the ultrasound

We had a fun ultrasound to look at the gender. He, I, and my parents went to the appointment together. The midwife couldn't see it well yet, because the baby kept turning or was in the wrong position. After that, she continued to look at him. She couldn't get a good look inside his head. She said it was probably nothing strange, but that she still wanted to refer us to her colleague. The next day we were allowed to come in right away. That's when the nightmare began. She mentioned that the baby's abdomen was measuring a bit smaller than normal. When she moved to his head, she indicated that she couldn't see it very well. She referred us to St Thomas' Hospital in London, just to be sure. At that moment, things only went downhill with M. The sniffling became regular. I tried to ignore it, because I had something else on my mind now. My baby. During the GUO (an early 20-week ultrasound), I saw the doctor's expression grow more serious as the baby bounced up and down. 'This is not good, guys,' she said. There were suspicions of severe abnormalities. There was so much fluid in the head that she couldn't see the brain. He also had a double cleft. All this, combined with the growth retardation, was bad news. She wanted to schedule an amniocentesis. Both of us were in tears. 'How can this be? Everything was fine: the NIPT and the ultrasounds,' I whispered. I was going to give birth to a baby that was going to die. It was also incredibly painful that we had already planned our gender reveal: the balloons were ordered, even the cake was already arranged. We had to cancel all of this, because our child was going to die.

NIKKI