The Son I Thought I Lost

Did you know that, in circumstances like mine, someone can lie about being pregnant, create fake pregnancy tests, fake scan images, fake appointments and fake hospital visits, and emotionally convince another person that they are going to become a parent — yet, unless another offence is committed, the deception itself may not necessarily be a criminal offence?

A person can make you believe, for months, that you are going to be a dad. They can make you fall in love with a child you believe is growing inside the person you love. They can make you plan a future around that child.

And then they can tell you that your baby has died.

That is what happened to me.

For 5–6 months, I genuinely believed I was going to become a father. I was shown pregnancy tests. I was shown scan pictures. I was told about appointments and hospital visits. I emotionally invested myself in a child I believed was real.

Then, three weeks ago, I was told my baby had been born and had died.

I was sent a photograph of a deceased baby.

I cannot put into words what that did to me.

When I looked at that photograph, my heart completely broke. I cried in a way I didn’t know I was capable of crying. All I wanted was to hold my son, tell him that I loved him and tell him how sorry his daddy was that he couldn’t have protected him.

At that moment, I didn’t know it was a lie.

I believed my son had died.

And that grief was real.

Three weeks later, I’m still struggling.

I know now that the pregnancy wasn’t real. I know that the baby I was mourning never existed. But my feelings didn’t know that when it happened.

My mind doesn’t simply switch off because I’ve been told it was all a lie.

When the house goes quiet and my mind starts wandering, I see his face.

When I try to sleep, I see his face.

I think about the baby I thought I was going to meet.

I think about the future I thought I was going to have.

And sometimes I feel completely broken because I’m grieving someone who, in reality, never existed.

I’ve even questioned my own sanity because how can you grieve a child who was never there?

But the answer is simple.

Because the love was real. The hope was real. The fear was real. And the grief was real.

I have reported what happened. The only part of this that appears to give the police a potential criminal route is the extremely distressing material that was sent to me, which may fall under malicious communications legislation.

But what about everything that came before that?

What about deliberately making someone believe they are going to be a parent?

What about months of deception?

What about the emotional attachment?

What about deliberately creating the belief that a child exists and then telling someone that child has died?

What protection is there for people who are subjected to that?

I don’t believe anyone should be able to do this to another human being and simply walk away because the law hasn’t caught up with the harm it can cause.

I’m not saying this because I want revenge.

I’m saying it because I don’t want another man or woman to experience what I am experiencing now.

I wouldn’t wish this pain on anybody.

I have already reached out to Jesse Norman, who has agreed to speak with the relevant people and help raise awareness of what has happened.

But I don’t want to stop there.

I want to see this conversation reach Parliament.

I want lawmakers to understand that emotional abuse and deception can leave wounds that are every bit as real as physical ones.

I want there to be proper consideration of whether the law needs to change so that people who deliberately fabricate pregnancies and devastating outcomes to emotionally manipulate another person cannot simply be told, “No law has been broken.”

Because something doesn’t have to be physically illegal for it to be profoundly wrong.

What happened to me was wrong.

And if speaking about it can prevent even one other person from going through this, then I will keep speaking.

Please help me turn my pain into something positive.

Please sign and share the petition.

Not just for me.

For the men and women who may otherwise become victims of something like this in the future.

I never got to hold the son I thought I had lost.

But I can fight to make sure that what happened to me isn’t allowed to happen to someone else without the law even having the tools to recognise the damage it causes.

Please help me make this heard. ❤️‍🩹