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Expecting a child in one’s life is the most amazing thing. However, when one is lied to or illusioned about his partner’s pregnancy, there can be nothing crueler or devastating for him. For Paul Servat, 35, from Quebec in Canada, the excited father-to-be, there was nothing that could have shattered him more than his girlfriend Barbara Bienvenue, 37, who was not actually pregnant but rather had a strange condition.
The couple who had met in the summer of 2014 were expecting quintuplets and were extremely happy about it. In September of the same year, they found out that they were going to have five babies. Like most expecting parents, they even announced to their family and friends and began guessing names for their children. Their community of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu in Quebec was quickly gripped with their update even before a Facebook page for created to keep everyone informed, as the news spread like wild fire.
In the meanwhile, the community also came up supporting them that was quite overwhelming for the couple. They began receiving various donations, clothing, furniture and Barbara also received a corporate sponsor. Paul even said that a friend used his personal and professional contacts to get her sponsorships. The couple even prepared a baby room. In fact, an interview of Paul was concluded “in the baby room filled with five colourfully adorned cribs that lie empty.” During her so called pregnancy, Barbara befriended Geneviève Laflamme, a mother of triplets who imparted her tips to Barbara. She told CTV News, “I gave her tips on how to handle it, where to get financial support, where to get sponsors for diapers.” But when the big day arrived to give birth, the couple was shocked at the strange news.
When the couple arrived at the hospital, the staff at the hospital said that they could find no paperwork of Bienvenue that confirmed her pregnancy. To clear their doubts, a nurse even provided the couple with results of the blood test to assess that Barbara wasn’t pregnant in the first place!
Doctors explained that Barbara must have experienced a condition call pseudocyesis also called ‘phantom pregnancy’ or false pregnancy. It’s a condition where women experience symptoms like an interruption of the menstrual cycle, a swollen belly, tender breasts and other symptoms of pregnancy like feeling fetal movements, vomiting, weight gain, producing milk and labor pains while not being pregnant.
On the other hand, a relative of Barbara contacted Paul and informed him that this was not the first time that Barbara had gone through the condition. She added that they had no idea she was so sick that she would do this again and that Barbara had once lied to a former partner about being pregnant. The likelihood that she must have lied to him as well totally devastated Paul.
It was quite a hard time for Servat. But with the support of his family and friends, he is trying to overcome the tough time and also trying to make some good out of the devastation.
He has vowed to return all the generous donations that he received either to those who made the offer or to charity. He said, “I’m a good person and I have nothing to do with these lies.”
When Servat spoke to QMI, he was in tears as he spoke these words, “I lost everything, it was my whole life.”
It’s hard to imagine what Servat must be going through. However, his gesture of returning the donations has come as an admirable gesture amidst the storm.
False pregnancy occurs in mammals but is a rare occurrence in human beings. The false symptoms are primarily psychological. It could also occur due to the changes in the endocrine system of the body that cause the hormones to bring the pregnancy-like changes in the body.
