My Thai Girlfriend Said She Was Pregnant

For about five months, I thought I was going to have a child there. I am from Australia and this happened a few years ago when I was 41. I’d been to Thailand a few times before and thought I was reasonably switched on. I wasn’t one of those men arriving for the first time thinking every girl who smiled at me wanted to get married.

I met a woman I’ll call Prey through my mate’s Thai girlfriend. There were about eight of us out for someone’s birthday in Bangkok, and Prey came along with them. She was 33, had a daughter from a previous relationship and lived down towards Chonburi, where she worked doing nails with another woman.

We got on well that night and ended up spending most of the rest of my holiday together. There was nothing particularly dramatic about it. I went back to Australia. We kept talking and I booked another trip for later in the year.

Positive Pregnancy Tests and Early Clinic Costs

Then about five weeks after I had left Thailand, she video-called me while I was at work and showed me a positive pregnancy test. I remember sitting in the car afterwards thinking there was a very good chance it was mine because we had been stupid a couple of times.

Prey wasn’t jumping around excited. She was actually quite upset and kept saying she didn’t know how she was going to tell her mother. I asked her to take another test and she did. A few days later, she told me she’d been to a clinic and sent me pictures from the visit.

I didn’t suddenly start throwing money at her. The first thing she asked for was something like 1,800 baht because she paid for the clinic and some tablets. Then maybe a week later, she said she had missed a couple of days at the nail shop because she’d been feeling sick and was short of money for her room. I sent another 4,000.

The amounts were never the same. Sometimes she would ask for 2,500. Sometimes I sent her money without her asking because I knew she’d missed work. One time it was about 6,700 baht for blood tests and something else at the clinic. I can’t remember every amount I sent. The important bit is that I believed her.

I told my parents about six or seven weeks after she first called me. My mom was over the moon. That made it all feel much more real because suddenly I wasn’t just talking to Prey about it. My family knew, my sister knew, and everyone was asking what I was going to do.

Returning to Thailand and Missing Clinic Appointments

I moved my next Thailand trip forward. Prey knew I was coming, and she seemed happy about it. By the time I got back, she would have been somewhere around 12 or 13 weeks if we’d worked the dates out correctly. Obviously, she wasn’t walking around with a massive stomach at that stage. She looked exactly the same to me. She said she had been sick quite a lot and complained about certain smells making her feel ill. But I’d never been around a pregnant woman that early before, so I didn’t know what I was supposed to be looking for.

I stayed with her for just over two weeks. This is where there were things I should probably have questioned more. I wanted to go to one of her appointments, not because I suspected anything. I actually wanted to see the baby. There always seemed to be some reason why it couldn’t happen while I was there.

She’d already had one appointment before I arrived. Another wasn’t due until after I left. At one point, she said we could go to a clinic together. Then, the day before, she told me they had changed the appointment.

I remember getting annoyed about that, but not because I thought the pregnancy was fake. I was annoyed because I was flying backwards and forwards between Australia and Thailand and wanted to be involved. We even had an argument about it and she got upset, saying that I didn’t trust her.

Apart from that, the trip was completely normal. I met her daughter again, saw some of her family, and spent most of my nights with Prey.

Financial Support and Ultrasound Pictures

I gave her some money before I went back to Australia because by then we’d agreed I’d help while she was pregnant.

I wasn’t sending some huge monthly salary. I’d send money when she needed it. Maybe 5,000 one week, nothing for a couple of weeks, then 9,000 for something else. Looking back, that’s probably why I didn’t notice how much it was adding up to.

Prey would also send me pictures occasionally. There were clinic documents, vitamins, and a couple of ultrasound pictures. I didn’t study them like evidence in a murder investigation. Why would I? I thought they were pictures of my own child.

A few months into all of this, she told me she’d found out it was probably a boy. That was the point where it really got me. I’d already been thinking about what I was going to do with work and whether I needed to spend more time in Thailand. But after that, I started thinking about names and all the stupid little things you think about when you believe you’re going to be a father.

My mom even bought a few baby clothes. But I told her not to go mad because there was still a long way to go.

Prey Told Me She Had Lost the Baby

But then everything changed. I was at home one morning when Prey called me and she was upset. I could barely understand her. She said she had been bleeding. She’d gone to the hospital and she had lost the baby.

I don’t really know how to explain what that did to me. I didn’t question her. I didn’t ask for hospital paperwork or start checking dates. I believed we’d lost our son, so I wanted to book a flight that night.

Prey kept telling me not to come. She said her mother was taking her back home to recover. She didn’t want to see anybody and there was nothing I could do by flying over. We actually argued about it because I told her I didn’t care where she was. I’d come to her. She became really upset and begged me to leave her alone for a while.

I didn’t have much of a choice. I sent her some money for whatever was needed. I honestly couldn’t tell you exactly how much that one was. It might have been 8,000 or 10,000 baht. At the time, I thought I was respecting what a woman who had just lost our baby was asking me to do. However, looking back now, obviously, I wish I had gotten on that plane.

For the next few weeks, our relationship was pretty bad. I was struggling with what had happened, and Prey barely wanted to talk about it. If I brought the baby up, she’d either go quiet or tell me she didn’t want to think about it. Eventually, we started arguing about other things, and the relationship fizzled out. We just spoke less and less until there wasn’t much left.

I was upset about losing Prey, but that wasn’t what stayed with me. I thought I’d lost a child.

Discovering Another Woman’s Ultrasound Photo

About six months later, my mate’s girlfriend, the same woman who’d introduced us, sent me a message asking if she could call me. She sounded uncomfortable from the start. Apparently, she had fallen out with Prey over something completely unrelated. During the argument, Prey had said something that made her suspicious about what had happened with me.

She asked me if I still had any of the pregnancy pictures Prey had sent to me. I did. I sent her a couple of the ultrasound pictures. She called me almost straight away and asked where I had got one of them. I told her Prey had sent it to me months earlier and said that it was our baby.

She went quiet. Then she told me she’d seen that exact same scan photo before. Another woman they both knew had been pregnant the previous year and had sent the ultrasound into a group chat that they were all in. My mate’s girlfriend was certain it was the same picture.

I didn’t believe her at first, so she contacted the woman and asked if she still had it, and she did.

A little while later, I had both pictures on my phone. Same scan, same markings, everything. Prey had just cropped some of the information off before sending it to me. That was the moment everything started coming apart.

The woman confirmed the scan belonged to her and that she’d originally shared it with the group when she was pregnant. That still didn’t prove Prey had never been pregnant. It proved she’d lied to me about at least one ultrasound.

Asking Prey for Hospital Records

I messaged Prey. I sent her both pictures and asked why she’d sent me another woman’s scan. At first, she said nothing. Then she told me she’d lost one of her own pictures and had only sent that one because she wanted me to see what the baby looked like at that stage. I wanted to believe that explanation more than I care to admit.

Then my mate’s girlfriend told me something else. She said that Prey had admitted during their argument that there never was a baby. I asked if she had proof. She didn’t. It was one person’s word against another.

I called Prey and asked her directly. She went absolutely mad at me. She said her friend was jealous, called her a liar, and asked how I could accuse her of something like that after she had lost a child.

For about two days, I didn’t know what to believe. Then I asked Prey one very simple thing. I said I wasn’t asking for money back and I wasn’t interested in fighting. I just wanted the name of the hospital where she’d been treated when she miscarried and whatever paperwork she still had from it.

She wouldn’t give me either. Every time I asked, the subject changed. She said she’d thrown everything away. Then she said some paperwork was at her mother’s house. Then she asked why I was torturing her. Eventually, she blocked me.

I still can’t sit here and give you medical proof that Prey was never pregnant. I never got that. What I know is that at least one ultrasound she told me was our baby belonged to somebody else. The woman who introduced us told me Prey had admitted there was never a pregnancy. And when I finally asked Prey for something that could clear it up, she disappeared.

The Cost of Believing I Had Lost a Son

I tried adding up how much money I had sent during those months. I got somewhere past 80,000 baht and stopped because I was only making myself angry. But honestly, the money is the part I care about the least.

For months, I thought I had a son coming. I changed work plans around it. I’d flown back to Thailand earlier because of it. I told my mom she was getting another grandson. Then I spent another six months believing he had died. And that’s the bit that still gets me.

If Prey had simply scammed me out of 80,000 or 90,000 baht, I’d probably laugh about being an idiot by now. But I grieved that baby.

Whether there was ever a pregnancy at the very beginning, I can’t prove either way. Maybe there was and she started lying later. Maybe the whole thing was made up from the first phone call. I don’t know. And that’s probably the only honest ending I can give you. But I have done a lot of research online and fake pregnancy scams seem to be very popular in Thailand.