She Ghosted Me When She Got Pregnant

After I completed the university in 2017, I applied for a three-month internship in one of the multinational companies in Ghana. Later, I got the opportunity to do my national service in the same company. Fortunately, the organization employed me after I completed national service.  Now, when I first joined the organization, my line manager introduced me to the team. After the introductions, he tasked Anita to take me around and introduce me to the other teams.

Anita was warm and friendly. She smelled like home. After our first interaction, I knew we were going to be great friends. She just had this light around her that drew me in. We kept talking after I settled into the work environment. And just as I knew we became close friends. You couldn’t separate us even if you tried. We would call each other after work and gossip about office affairs,  talk about relationships, and discuss everything else that came to mind.

Anita had a boyfriend on our team, so we were always teasing them. When they had issues, they confided in me. In return, I did my best to help them resolve it. Soon enough, management got to know about their relationship. It was against company policy for teammates to date, so they moved Anita to another team. This did not affect my friendship with her in any way.

I didn’t have a boyfriend at that time. My relationship with my campus boyfriend had ended due to long-distance, and I was taking my time to heal. So when Frank who was in a different team expressed interest in me, I turned him down. Anita pled his case, “Soph, don’t write him off so easily like that. I know Frank. He is a good guy.” I shook my head, “Maybe he is a good friend. That doesn’t mean he will be a good boyfriend. I wouldn’t want to get involved with anyone I work with, and end up making a mess of things if things didn’t work out.”

For one year, the guy wouldn’t back down, neither would Anita. They both kept pushing me until I finally agreed to date Frank. We called ourselves favored four; me, Frank, Anita, and Anita’s boyfriend. The four of us always ate lunch together. And on Friday mornings, we would hold a small waakye party. We formed a bond that was as thick as family. One person’s problem became a problem for all of us. We supported each other through good times and bad times. What we had was enviable.

In 2019, Anita and her boyfriend got married in September. Frank and I also got married in December of that year. Shortly after their wedding, Anita got pregnant but miscarried in December before our wedding. We didn’t understand their pain but we stood by them and comforted them. “You will conceive again so don’t lose hope,” we encouraged. A little while later, she got pregnant again. Unfortunately, she lost that baby too.

While she was experiencing her losses I was also dealing with a similar thing. I conceived right after our wedding but miscarried in February. In March, Covid hit so we had to work from home. Sadly, I had another miscarriage while we were working from home. Anita and I bonded more over our shared grief. We spent a lot of time talking on the phone. On most days, we encouraged each other. On other days we laughed about the missed periods that gave us false pregnancy alarms.

We discussed our hospitals and the doctors we were seeing. We talked about the drugs we were prescribed. We traded prayer topics and interceded on each other’s behalf. We were on the waiting journey. And it was good to have someone who understands your pain, waiting and praying with you.

In October, all four of us met to celebrate my birthday. That was the last normal moment we had together. I say normal because things became weird after that meeting. Anita and her husband started withdrawing from us. They stopped calling us like they used to.

At first, we thought something was wrong with one of them. So I would call Anita and tell her we were visiting. She would say, “Oh, this weekend won’t work. We are expecting some visitors. Let’s make it next weekend.” On the next weekend, my best friend would tell me, “The visitors who were supposed to visit the last time couldn’t make it. It is this weekend that they are coming. Why don’t we postpone our meeting again?” This happened three consecutive times.

I got the message that she was cutting me off, and it concerned me. I wondered what I did that was so wrong that she couldn’t tell me so we’d resolve it. She was like a sister to me. She was the only one besides my husband who knew about my struggles with pregnancy. So I was deeply hurt by her absence. However, I couldn’t have kept forcing myself on her. So I decided to stop calling her. I hoped she would miss me, and call me, but that never happened.

Frank also didn’t understand why they changed so drastically toward us. He called Anita looking for answers. She told him they were broke so they had to cut back on social outings. This didn’t explain why the WhatsApp group we created for the four of us was always quiet. What about the times when I tried to visit her and she didn’t allow it? I told Frank, “I suspect Anita is pregnant. This is the only reason she would cut me off.” He didn’t believe it, “I don’t think she is. Is she a child that she would hide her pregnancy from us?”

In January 2021, I noticed that I was pregnant. My husband and I prayed and trusted God that this one would stay. All this while, Anita wasn’t talking to us so I didn’t know how to share the news with her. In March she called me and accused me of ghosting her. I told her she was the one who started it. It was an awkward phone call and the shortest one we had ever had. We were still working from home so we hadn’t seen each other.

I was on the phone with our receptionist that very month when she said, “I saw Anita in town today. Pregnancy looks good on her.” I was shocked but I agreed with her, as though I already knew she was pregnant. When we hung up I shared the news with Frank. He didn’t believe it, “Maybe she has just put on weight. She would have shared the news with us.” A few months later, Anita called my husband to discuss work. They had a lengthy conversation on the phone. They even talked about married life. There was no mention of pregnancy during this period. I even had a brief chat with her.

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The next day, my husband’s friend called him to gossip. According to the lady, they were bringing someone new to replace Anita on her team, so she could go on maternity leave. That was when Frank believed that Anita stopped talking to us because she was pregnant. I laughed, and the next thing I realized, I was in tears. I wasn’t crying because I was hurt. I was shedding tears of joy for my friend.

The next day, Anita’s husband posted a photo of a newborn on our WhatsApp page. He captioned it, “Our bundle of joy has arrived safely. All glory to God.” I woke my husband up and shared the news with him. He came to hug me and said, “Don’t be sad that your friend stopped talking to you because she conceived, and even hid it from you for nine months.” We sent them congratulatory messages.

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A week later, we went to see my gynae for an appointment. Just when we opened the door, we saw Anita and her husband and the baby. We smiled and walked to them to say hello. Two months later, they invited us to their naming ceremony but we couldn’t make it. However, we visited them one Sunday after church. We spoke as if nothing ever happened. She never explained her behavior. Everyone who knew us knew she was pregnant but us, yet she it didn’t occur to her that she did something wrong.

Two weeks after our visit, I also delivered. They came to visit us the next day. We have moved on as if we are okay. Our friendship hasn’t been bad but there is a crack in our bond. We don’t understand why they did what they did but we have accepted it as part of life.