When Chris spoke to a health official who called to check on me (my case had been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta), he realized our baby was at risk for premature birth and newborn pneumonia, and he became hysterical, as though he were having a nervous breakdown. It took a few more days of wrenching confrontation for our marriage to disintegrate.
'I haven't done anything wrong.' Instead of arguing about how I felt or figuring out how I wanted to handle the larger issue, I focused on what I needed at that moment - to take medicine and get healthy - much as I had throughout our rocky marriage. 'They've got to be wrong, or I must have picked up something in the gym,' he insisted. When I confronted my husband, Chris (not his real name), with my test results that night, he denied he was to blame.
'We're both monogamous.' But of course I knew that wasn't really true, and the doctor's words forced me to finally acknowledge what I'd suspected for a long time: My husband was most likely gay. 'You've got to talk to your husband.' I was in total disbelief.
'You have chlamydia,' my obstetrician told me as I lay on the examining table, six months pregnant with my fourth child.
