Food writer who struggled to conceive after discovering her husband had fathered a child while in his teens shares incredible moment she credits with finally getting her pregnant

A food writer has shared the astonishing story of how her husband kept secret a daughter he fathered while in his teens - and how she believes the revelation affected her ability to conceive.  

San Francisco-based Arielle Giusto's story is one of triumph over circumstance, with a surprising twist surrounding her husband, Nick. 

The 41-year-old credits it with unblocking the 'trauma' previously keeping her from conceiving - even if it meant learning that her spouse of several years already had a daughter.

The revelation was provided by Nick himself, after a fertility doctor asked her if he had ever fathered a child before. He confessed during a subsequent phone call that he had conceived a child with a girl while in high school, and claimed that she'd had an abortion.

He later admitted to his wife that the child had not been aborted - he had a daughter who is now a 26-year-old woman - paving the way for a reunion more than a year later. She credits this to her recent, successful pregnancy, which, by the looks of her husband's Instagram, culminated with a son of their own.

The story from San Francisco-based food blogger Arielle Giusto is one of triumph over circumstance, with a surprising twist surrounding her husband, Nick. It was aired in a NYT op-ed titled A Shattering Secret on the Path to Motherhood

The 41-year-old credits it with unblocking the 'trauma' previously keeping her from conceiving - even if it meant learning that her spouse of several years (seen at left) already had a daughter (at right). The pair are seen after reuniting in 2019, when she was 20

'Has your husband ever gotten anyone pregnant before?' Giusto recalled her doctor asking in an op-ed penned for The New York Times - a routine question that almost led to a marital crisis. 

'No,' she reportedly responded, as the two attempted to get to the bottom of the reason for her infertility.

'I don't think so. I'll ask,' she added, before heading home to the couple's $1.6million home in rural Woodacre, less than an hour's drive from San Fran.

'It seemed like something I should know,' the prominent food writer wrote in the newly published Times piece - titled A Shattering Secret on the Path to Motherhood.

During the drive, she called her husband - at first telling her about her day at work as a chef at a local restaurant, before getting into the nitty gritty of the question posed by her doctor. 

'Hello?' she recalled saying, after being met with silence on the other end of the line.

'Yeah, I'm here,' her spouse, now 44, replied. 'And, uh, yes, I have. My senior year in high school.'

The admission, Giusto remembered, surprised her to no end - but she managed to keep her cool.

The revelation was provided by Nick himself, Giusto wrote - after a fertility doctor asked if her if he had ever fathered a child before

'Whoa, you never told me about that,' she reportedly retorted, asking her husband if his partner at the time had an abortion.

'Uh huh, she did,' he replied - with his wife writing how his voice was 'barely audible.'

'What? Four years into marriage and this never came up?' She reportedly asked: all while trying to keep the conversation light,

She went on to tell him: 'Let's talk more later. For now, I guess I can report back that your parts seem to be in good working order,' before continuing on down the Redwood-rife route home.

Once there, the couple convened, cooking and enjoying dinner before settling down for the night.

Once in bed, a visibly perturbed Nick made yet another confession, she remembered - one that would forever change both of their lives, for the better.

'There was no abortion,' he told her, his face pale-white. 'My high school girlfriend, she kept the baby,' he continued, revealing the girl's parents asked him to sign an agreement saying he would not play a part in the youngster's upbringing. 

'I gave up my rights before the child was born,' he told her. 'I've never seen her. I don't even know if they told her about me.' 

Pictured, the couple's $1.6million home in rural Woodacre, less than an hour's drive from San Francisco. Maeve lived more than 300 miles away, near the Sierra Nevadas

He went on to offer an emotional apology, telling Giusto: 'I'm so sorry. I didn't know how to tell you and then so much time passed.'

He added: 'Each year we were together it got harder and harder. Once we started trying to have a baby, I didn't feel like I could tell you - I didn't want it to get in the way of your experience.'

The words, the food writer recalled, shook her to her core.  

'My experience? This is about us. Our experience. How could you hold a secret like that?' she said, writing of how she jumped out of bed while airing the rhetorical question

'I was worried you would leave me,' Nick reportedly said back, his face scared and twisted with apprehension.

'All right, let's hear it,' Giusto reportedly told him, attempting to calm him down. 'Tell me the whole story.' 

Struggling to look her in the eye, he offered her an account of why he willingly gave up his first chance of fatherhood.

Hi girlfriend, he told her, was from a evangelical household, and his punk rock persona at the time did not help smooth the controversy created by impregnating a preacher's daughter. 

Giusto wrote of how desperate she was to find the girl due to the nature of her own upbringing - one without much input from her own biological father. Worried Nick had inflicted a similar pain on his daughter, she found Maeve’s mother’s address on Google, mailing her a letter

Her family, he said, declared that an abortion was out of the question, and with college on the horizon, Nick made a difficult decision.

 'I signed away my rights to an unborn child,' he told Giusto, who owns and runs a food blogging site. 'They said it was what she wanted.' 

He reportedly reached out for her hand at this point - a gesture Giusto rejected.

The couple eventually moved past this awkwardness and set out to search for the baby Nick had given up. 

Through high school friends, he found out she was a girl named Maeve - as the couple moved on from natural conception to intrauterine insemination (IUI), after the first two rounds failed, Giusto was even more despondent.

Maeve, meanwhile, was born four days after her father's 18th birthday, some 19 years before. The couple quickly reached out to the girl's mother.

Giusto wrote of how desperate she was to find the girl due to the nature of her own upbringing - one without much input from her own biological father.

Worried Nick had inflicted a similar pain on his daughter, she  found Maeve’s mother’s address on Google, mailing her a one-page letter a month later.

However, despite the emotional, apologetic nature of that correspondence, no response came.

A year passed, during which the couple kept trying to have a baby, to no avail.  

One random Tuesday in 2019 when Nick received a call from Maeve’s mother. She told Nick that Maeve wanted to meet. They went on to reunite, after which the couple were able to conceive their own child. Pictured, Giusto and her son meeting the boy's grandmother in 2021

Then, on a Tuesday in 2019 Nick received a call from Maeve’s mother. 

She told Nick that Maeve wanted to meet him, and that she had been wanting to over the years, coming close but each time deciding against it.

She did not want to upset her mother or adoptive father, Maeve's mom told him - but was emboldened by his and his wife's letter.

After a number of phone calls, the couple were able to meet Maeve in a park that September, sitting with the then-20-year-old at a table to talk for hours.

A month later, on Nick’s 40th, the pair rented a cabin in the Sierra Nevada Mountains near where Maeve lived to celebrate, two weeks after Giusto underwent am embryo transfer, meaning she could finally take a pregnancy test.

She wrote how she brought one and planned to do it the evening they arrived, and how when they did, Maeve joined them for dinner.

They went on to spend hours catching up on her her experiences throughout high school and childhood, after which she cleared the plates and snuck upstairs to administer the test after her most recent attempt at IUI, she remembered.

Ten minutes later, she saw two blue lines - a welcome sign that the test was positive.

She began to cry, while overhearing her husband and his daughter's two voices in the kitchen. The couple have since given birth to a son, Nick's social media shows - an occurrence Giusto attributes to finding Maeve.

'I no longer needed to wonder where our babies were,' she wrote of that realization. 'They were right here with us.'

The couple have since welcomed a son, with Nick sharing heart-warming photos of his family's adventures together on Instagram.