This is a weird one, so bear with me, I'd rather lay it all out here than drip feed.
Last year, DH and I moved a long distance (we live in the US) and met up with a couple he'd known from his school days, since they were some of the only people we knew in the large general area where we moved to.
Shockingly (to me, at least, as I find it somewhat hard to find friends after graduating university), we got along very, very well -- excellent conversations, easy to talk to even though we didn't agree on everything. We had new friends, even though they lived a few hours away!
The couple in question had two DC's already, ages 5 and 4, very sweet young children. She wants to have many more children -- they are not religious, but they have a very out-there, self-sufficient, off-the-grid lifestyle: she trained as a midwife, though she's a SAHM now. They don't do a lot of traditional medicine stuff, and they make EVERYTHING themselves, from shoes to salt. A little strange, sure, but nothing that made me say anything more than "well, that's not how I would do it."
I suffered from infertility for a number of years, and I'm at that age where it seems like everyone around me is having babies, so when my new friend told me that she was pregnant again, I felt a mixture of envy and joy for her. She had suffered losses of her own: two stillbirths, both of girl children, and one of her sons was premature and had a traumatic birth and NICU stay.
She was hopeful and proud about her pregnancy, and two weeks later, a freaking miracle happened: I got a positive pregnancy test, too. We were going to have babies together, with due dates just 8 weeks apart! I couldn't have been more thrilled.
We met up a few times during pregnancy, though during the third trimester I was feeling way too out-of-sorts to make the three-hour drive.
This is probably time to mention: both my friend and I are fat women. It's relevant to the issue, trust me on this one.
You see, she was supposed to have her baby 8 weeks before me. I planned to go as doula support for her birth, but she went late, and I wasn't feeling as well as I had been.
Then, suddenly, it was my due date, and she still hadn't had her baby.
We were emailing a LOT during pregnancy, but I slowly started to realize as my due date drew nearer that it was likely she was experiencing pseudocyesis (false/"hysterical" pregnancy, though that term is messed up). She was doing an unassisted pregnancy and planned an unassisted birth, and was making excuses not to go in and see a doctor. She claimed she could hear a fetal heartbeat on fetoscope, but this is something many women with this condition can experience.
My baby is now nearly 12 weeks old. I haven't heard from my friend since he was 7 weeks old, when she was still sure she would give birth any day now (and had at that point claimed to be feeling labor symptoms for about 14 weeks). The last email she sent was about how her pregnancy and birth group had kicked her out, saying no one could be pregnant for that long and that she was either lying or delusional. She was incredibly angry about this and was looking for support.
I never emailed her back. I feel crushingly guilty about it, but I just...didn't know what to do. Her husband has been with her since they were both young teenagers and experienced the trauma of her stillbirths with her -- he is very deferent to her in all matters relating to birth and pregnancy, and won't force her to the hospital.
I feel actually kind of scared to write back, and especially scared about the potential of meeting up with them any time before this issue is 100% resolved and she is mentally well again. My concern is one that feels crazy to me, but also that I know is a thing that really happens: women with pseudocyesis, caught in a shame and mental illness spiral, and with family and friends all wondering where that baby is, can sometimes go crazy enough to kill a woman who is pregnant or has a new baby, then steal the baby (pregnant women are killed this way every year, at least in the US -- the woman with pseudocyesis usually cuts the baby out of the pregnant woman, as horrifying as that is).
I know it's likely that I'm being overprotective and that my friend is not likely to be a killer (I can barely even believe I'm saying she could be one!). But it wasn't likely that when she announced her pregnancy, she'd still be claiming to be pregnant a year later. I want to help her get well, but I want to protect myself and my infant son, too.
Now that I've written you a book, any advice? I'm at such a loss.