A web of lies

Read Time: 4,5 mins

In this baby journey I am mostly an emotional support lesbian. It’s like an emotional support animal but with more attitude. My role, specifically, is to provide companionship and therapeutic benefits to one parasite-infested individual. 

My fiancée, Christine, is doing all the heavy lifting. So far, to name but a few of her tasks in this baby making process, she has conversed with potential donors, completed all the administrative legal mumbo-jumbo, and had her body poked and prodded by a collection of well-meaning doctors with cold hands. To thank her for hard work, she must carry and birth the human bowling ball. 

By comparison, my job has been to hand her packets of crackers before she gets angry. 

Oh — and lie.

I’m not a good liar. When I was a child and had done something naughty my mother would simply ask me if I had done it. She knew full well that I wouldn’t be able to say no. I would bow my head bashfully, say yes, and hope for the best.

For heterosexual relationships, assuming everything is functioning normally, there is no reason to tell anyone that you are trying for a baby. In our case, due to the nature of the process being much more medical and confusing, we had to be more open about starting a family. I suppose we didn’t have to but as two female 30-somethings with a baby wish, you get a lot of questions. We found it easiest just to answer them. Truthfully.

It never crossed my mind that to keep the pregnancy a secret we would have to lie about it. 

Now, while I can’t tell a lie to save my life, my darling fiancée doesn’t just lie — she changes the very fabric of the universe. Her white lies are supported with backstories and psychologically advanced emotional reasoning as to why this lie makes more sense than the alternative that she could be telling you.

On principle, I feel, Christine fell pregnant immediately. She had spent years daydreaming about being pregnant. How it would feel like running barefoot through a meadow full of wild flowers. How beautiful it would be to be at one with nature. She couldn’t wait to experience carrying a child. The romance that she felt towards pregnancy went out the toilet window within 5 weeks when she discovered pregnancy’s gift to humanity: morning sickness.

 In Christine’s case it was more of an all day brunch kind of sickness but beggars can’t be choosers.

“I’ve got an idea,” her head reappeared from within the belly of the toilet, “we need to tell people why I’m so sick.”

“We could just say ‘Christine’s sick’” I suggested.

“Don’t be silly. No one is going to believe that. It’s been two days.” Christine’s sense of people’s interest in her life has always been admirable. “People are going to smell a rat. We must be prepared so that we don’t give anything away.”

“We?”

“We.” She continued curtly, “we need a story.”

“No.”

“What?”

“No, we don’t. If anyone asks we can say you’re ill, or you have burnout - which you do.”

“That’s too obvious.” She wiped her mouth on my sleeve. “They’ll know I’m pregnant.”

“Who are they?” I was not going to stoop so low.

“They,” she pushed passed me and collapsed in a heap from the effort, “everyone. What about food poisoning?”

“For the next three months?” I stooped.

“Another bacteria? Some uncommon disease?” She was speaking mostly to herself. Then, worrisomely, a gleam came into her eyes, “oh! I’ve got it.”

“Oh?”

“I will say I have a really, really heavy period.”

She did too.

Every person she interacted with from mid-September to mid-November of 2025 heard that Christine had a very heavy period. They got many details on her gynaecological history as well as a few gorey ones to stop them asking any follow-up questions. By some miracle, and with the gaslighting of a master manipulator, Christine never got asked the question: “Hey, but didn’t you have a heavy period last time I saw you?”

When people would look pleadingly at me for help, I would nod my head slowly and knowingly. She kept up this ruse, and I followed along reluctantly, for many weeks before I broke.

Bes, a wonderfully deadpan Albanian, came over for dinner one night and Christine was too nauseous to eat. Bes, being a perfectly reasonable human being, put this down to Christine’s burnout. Christine was not to be dissuaded.

“I can’t eat because I have a really heavy period.” Christine announced looking sadly at her fork as she pushed the rice around on her plate.

“Oh,” Bes said sympathetically, “that’s the worst. First day?”

“No,” Christine sighed, “second.”

The rice I had been eating got beamed up into my nasal cavity as I snorted. Christine looked shocked and then turned to Bes with a look that said I’ve no idea what she is laughing about. With the rice grain stuck in my nose and me trying desperately not to laugh, a sort of semi grunt, semi giggle, came out of one of my facial holes. I don’t really know which one. 

Bes adapted her most feminist glare, “and what are you laughing about?”

“I, umm,” I turned to Christine who had the audacity to look indiggnated, “nothing”

“Are you laughing at Christine’s period pain?”

“No, no, I would never, umm something funny came across my mind,” I said with the confidence of a hedgehog in headlights. “Periods are never funny.”

When Bes left that night, the actress turned to me and with great confidence said “well, thank goodness we got away with that, you almost blew our cover. I was just giving a bit of backstory. I thought it was rather brilliant.” 

And, with that, she made her way to the bathroom.