Friday 7 February 2014

I've had two children with my best friend's dad

Jemma and Adrian

Jemma Wilson grimaced through another contraction and gripped the hand of her birthing partner.

Caring Vicky Overton, stepmum to Jemma’s best friend, never left her side for two days as she helped ease the pain.
But all the time the new mum had a shocking secret that made a mockery of that kindness. Because the man who got her pregnant was Vicky’s husband.
The father of her best friend Danielle.
At 20, Jemma had fallen into a drunken one-night stand with Adrian Overton, 17 years her senior and a man who had known her since she was a toddler.
Danielle and Vicky didn’t find out the truth until five months after the baby was born when Adrian left home to move in with Jemma.
The couple have two sons now – Jayden, five, and Bailey, four – and they are defiantly unrepentant.
“There’s no point in regrets,” says Jemma, now 27. “It’s one of those things. Adrian wasn’t happy with Vicky. Maybe we shouldn’t have got together when they were still married but it happened and there’s nothing I can do to change that.
"I’ve got my boys now. They’re the only thing that matters.”
Adrian, 44, adds: “Two years prior to Jemma coming along Vicky didn’t want me. Our marriage was over, so in my eyes I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Jemma, a nail technician from Huddersfield, West Yorks, was three when she first met Danielle, then one. They were inseparable as they grew up together.
“We went to the same primary school and then high school. I saw her as a sister,” says Jemma.

Daily MirrorJemma and Dannielle
Best friends: Danielle and Jemma when growing up together

In 2001 they lost touch when Jemma moved away. But six years later she moved to the street where Danielle lived with her dad and stepmum Vicky.
“Me and Danielle became close again,” she recalls. “We’d go out to the cinema together or drinking.”
She also got on well with Adrian and Vicky, who had wed three years earlier.
“When Danielle used to go out to her boyfriend’s I’d still go round because I’d made friends with them too. Adrian remembered me as a child but to be honest I didn’t remember him."
“They used to argue a lot,” she adds. Which explains why she and Adrian, a PC engineer, started spending time alone. “I had a two-bedroom house so he used to stay in my spare room.”
She insists that, at 20, she didn’t have feelings for him. “I didn’t see him in that way at all. He was a lot older, the same age as my mum.”
But Adrian was very attracted to her and as they spent one evening together he made his move.
“He said Vicky had thrown him out and asked if he could stay,” Jemma recalls. “We were watching TV and talking over a bottle of wine, like friends do. Then he leaned over and started kissing me.”

MDMJemma her best friends dad Adrian with kids Bailey and Jayden
No going back: With Bailey and Jayden

“I didn’t feel guilty,” Adrian insists. “I’d been sleeping on the sofa for a while. Vicky didn’t want me and I didn’t want her. I just had nowhere else to go.”
Though deep down she knew it would hurt her best friend, Jemma didn’t resist. “I’d had too much to drink and just went with the flow. Afterwards I went to bed and he stayed downstairs.
"It only sunk in in the morning. He’d already gone home when I came down. And when I next saw him we acted as if nothing had happened.”
Seven weeks later a test revealed she was pregnant, but even then she didn’t think of Danielle or Vicky.vvvvvv
“They didn’t come into my head, to be honest,” she admits. “I had to focus on the baby.”
Rather than tell Adrian face-to-face she sent him a text. And she told Danielle she’d had a one-night stand with a stranger. “She kept asking me who he was and where he lived but after a while she stopped.”
At that point Jemma didn’t want any romantic involvement with Adrian but he went with her for the scans, saying he was visiting relatives. Vicky, unaware of their betrayal, even helped pick out baby clothes. And it was Vicky that Jemma shamelessly turned to when she went into labour.
“I was walking my dog when my contractions just started,” she recalls. “I went round there because I didn’t know what the pains were. She was supportive, telling me to breathe. Adrian was there too.
“I was in so much pain I let her come with me to hospital. I was in labour for two days and she never left my side once. I feel a bit bad about that now but at the time I didn’t really care. She even cleaned Jayden and was the first one to hold him.”

Daily MirrorJemma and Jayden
New mum: Jemma with Jayden

Vicky insisted that the new mum stay at her house rather than go home on her own. “When he was first born, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing,” Jemma explains.
“I didn’t sleep properly and I wasn’t eating properly. Vicky used to help look after him and feed him. Danielle doted on Jayden and bought him a baby seat.”
Seeing Danielle holding her secret half-brother didn’t prompt any remorse in Jemma. She was thinking about Adrian.
When Jayden was two months old she was in the same room as him and Vicky when she sent him a text to say she now had feelings for him. With Vicky sitting right by him, he replied saying he felt the same.
“A couple of days later Vicky was out shopping,” says Jemma. “We kissed and it just felt right.”
Three months later Jemma moved out of the home were she had been shown so much kindness and Adrian brazenly went with her.
She recalls: “I texted Vicky, telling her we were together and I was sorry. I did feel bad a bit – but not much.
“Vicky must have told Danielle because a few days later they came round calling me a marriage wrecker and all sorts.”
Vicky, 39, has now divorced Adrian and his daughter Danielle, 25, has two children – grandchildren he has never met.
Jemma says: “As far as I’m concerned my boys don’t have a sister. I don’t feel sad about it.”
Adrian adds: “I haven’t bothered with Danielle for years. If I never see her again it will never bother me.”

Simon Ashton / Daily Mirror
Jemma with Adrian: 'I felt bad a bit about his wife Vicky, but not much'

The couple got engaged four years ago but have no immediate wedding plans.
Jemma, incredibly, says: “I think the only reason I have feelings for him is because I’ve had his kids. If it wasn’t for me getting pregnant I don’t think anything would have come of it.”
Asked if he’s in love with Jemma, Adrian says: “I wouldn’t quite put it like that but obviously there was Jayden, then she got pregnant with Bailey so I’ve done the right thing.”
It’s a long way from love’s young dream.
Vicky, meanwhile, had nothing to say on the issue and Danielle would only tell us: “As far as I’m concerned, my dad and Jemma are dead. They don’t exist.

SOURCE-IRISH MIRROR

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