When Anissa Cofer decided to film her husband, James Cofer, reacting to an unplanned pregnancy, she expected him to be surprised. Just a few weeks earlier, the high school sweethearts agreed they were done having kids, and that three was their perfect number.
“I knew he would be shocked when I told him," Anissa, 30, tells TODAY.com. “But I didn’t know he would be that shocked.”
In a now-viral TikTok video, Anissa casually asks James, 31, to open an FedEx envelope on their bed, which contains a photo of herself holding a positive pregnancy test. At first James thinks it’s just one of his wife’s practical jokes.
“Stop playing with me,” James says, reading Anissa’s face for clues that it’s a prank. When James realizes she’s serious, he lets out a dramatic “Noooo,” followed by several expletives.
“No!” he shouts. “No! No! No!”
While many parents praised the clip for its realness and said they could relate, some felt bad for Anissa.
“You looked so sad at his reaction,” one person wrote in the comments.
Added another, “Hope you’re OK.”
“I wasn’t upset at all. I knew he just needed a minute to process the news,” Anissa, who lives in Rockwall, Texas, tells TODAY.com. “Ten minutes later, he was super happy and we celebrated.”
James says he was caught off guard because he and Anissa had just had a good conversation about their brood being complete. They had been using the "rhythm method," a family-planning strategy that tracks a woman’s menstrual cycle to determine the days that she is most fertile.
“I was thinking, financially, can we handle this? And then I started thinking about the stress of overstretching of our hands. You want to be able to give each child individual attention and love,” James tells TODAY.com. “What you saw (in the video) was a rollercoaster of fear, stress and anxiety.”
James adds that he felt “embarrassed” when he watched the clip.
“I’d never want my spouse to think that I’m not supportive. She’s the glue that holds our family together,” he shares.
James and Anissa welcomed daughter Nola in March. And just like Anissa predicted, James is totally smitten with their baby girl.
“Daddy is her favorite,” James says. “I’m obsessed with her.”