Dear Prudie,
More than 13 years ago, I got pregnant. At the time, I was finishing
school and just beginning my career. My boyfriend "Ben" and I had been
dating seriously for a few years. We had talked about marriage and
children but hadn't decided on when that would be. Ben assumed the
pregnancy was a birth control failure. I told other people that it was
an "unplanned but welcome surprise.” I never told another person this,
but my pregnancy wasn't an accident at all. I stopped taking birth
control pills because I wanted to have a child. After I stopped I didn't
get pregnant for almost a year and got lulled into a false sense that
it was never going to happen. From the moment I saw the positive
pregnancy test, I knew what I had done was a horrible, dishonest,
unethical thing and felt terrible guilt and shame. I seriously
considered giving our baby up for adoption, but finally decided to raise
her. Ben and I split up when our daughter “Holly” was 3 years old. He
and I live in different states and aren’t friends, but he is involved in
Holly’s life and they have a good relationship. I eventually married
and so did he. I now have a younger child with my husband. Like everyone
else, my husband thinks my getting pregnant with Holly was an accident.
I have spent the last 13 years feeling that maybe I was some kind of
pathological monster. But I’m mentally stable, and I have a pretty
unremarkable suburban life. I had decided that I would go to my grave
never telling anyone what I had done. Recently, a friend became pregnant
after a one-night stand. Everyone assumes that was an accident, but she
confided in me that she had been seeking out sex with the purpose of
getting pregnant. I was so relieved to meet someone else who planned an
"accidental" pregnancy that it made me wonder if I should open up about
my secret. But I'm afraid if I told Ben it might change the way he
interacted with Holly. My questions are: Am I some kind of monster for
getting pregnant on the sly? And should I come clean, and if so, who
should know?