Transcript of Pseudocyesis, Psychosis, & Social Media

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Jared spent hours trying to get someone from the hospital on the phone. He was angry, convinced his wife had no right to decide what should happen to their children's remains without any input from him. He was ready to give them a piece of his mind. When a hospital administrator finally called him back, he began to tell her exactly what he thought. And to his surprise, she agreed with him, except for 1 thing.

There were no children to claim or to bury, because his wife was never pregnant.

After the AOC had called me on the hospital line and told me your wife was never pregnant, there were no children that were born or died About, I would say, 45 minutes later, I get a phone call from a cell phone number.

It was the same hospital administrator who Jared spoke to calling a second time to check on him and make sure he understood the the information she provided.

Can you just say that again? She is, yes. Your your wife was never pregnant. There were no children born nor Dionis that day. She called it, I don't know the scientific term.

The term Jared is referring to is pseudocyesis. Pseudocyesis or false pregnancy is when a person believes they're pregnant when they're not. It's also called a phantom pregnancy. They may have all of the physical signs and symptoms of being pregnant, but there is no fetus in the uterus.

And and she kinda went into it's a rare case when it happened, but it is possible where a woman's body can believe that she is with child, look, act, and feel the whole 9 yards.

Jared had never heard of this before. In fact, most people haven't.

Doctors don't know why. I did ask some technical questions like, why does it happen? Is this something I did? They're like, no. There's nothing that you could have seen or known to a t acts like a pregnant woman.

They're not.

Christie initially told Jared that she was detained by the hospital police and escorted out in handcuffs because of a warrant issued in her name due to an unpaid speeding ticket. But that wasn't true. Christy may have had a warrant for an unpaid speeding ticket, but that wasn't the reason she was detained.

So from what I learned was, basically, the reason she was escorted out to the hospital by 2 police officers was that she was hanging around the maternity ward, and the nurses suspected her that she may try to take a kid, like, kidnap a baby.

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Pseudocyesis is rare. It affects approximately 4 women in every 22,000 pregnancies.

From the research that I've done and talked to the nurses and things like that, they say it can happen. But once they have to see an ultrasound and there's nothing there, that's when it kinda breaks, and they're like, okay.

But what is extremely rare is when a woman like Christy goes full term with a false pregnancy. In fact, we spoke to multiple medical health professionals, emergency room doctors, obstetricians, nurses, psychologists, social workers, and none of them had ever seen a woman go to full term.

Rarely do they go full term. That doctor had not seen another 1 of those. And I'm still thinking back, like, why does this happen to me? I mean, I didn't do anyone any wrong, and here we are.

A doctor could practice their entire career. In fact, they could practice 10 careers and never see 1 of these. That's how rare the condition is. My name is Richard Farnham. I'm a medical doctor, board certified OBGYN, and subspecialist in urogynecology with a practice in El Paso, Texas up with an academic affiliation at Texas Tech.

Pseudocisis is just where someone believes they're pregnant. And in fact, they have physiologic changes that would accompany the normal signs of pregnancy. They can get abdominal bloating, they can have fatigue, they can have, nipple discharge, they'd have the sense that there are fetal movements. To the casual observer, they appear pregnant. They have a distended abdomen like they're carrying a baby.

They truly believe that they're pregnant, and it can actually be very difficult for them even when they're confronted with the medical evidence that shows that they're actually not pregnant.

We wanted to present a clinical perspective of what someone suffering from pseudosciasis may be experiencing. So we spoke to doctor Julia Baird, who was a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles. She did not treat Christy. She's never met Christy, but she specializes in the treatment of psychosomatic disorders like pseudoscience and has treated women suffering from pseudoscience in the course of her practice. Doctor Baird's approach to treating patients has an emphasis on healing the whole person, mind, body, and spirit.

I think the mind is a very powerful thing, and I think we don't, we don't usually focus enough on a more, like, holistic approach of integrating, mental health into just even just primary care, general medical, treatments.

Pseudocytosis is a psychosomatic disorder, meaning it has a heavy mind component, but it manifests physically in the body.

It's a false belief that there's a pregnancy and you actually manifest the symptoms and signs of pregnancy. So these people will actually feel nauseous, have morning sickness, their periods will stop, lactation will happen, all the symptoms of pregnancy can develop, but there is no actual pregnancy that's ever confirmed. So the ultrasound shows no pregnancy, pregnancy tests are false, but the yet they look pregnant and they're having all kinds of symptoms as if they're pregnant.

It's 1 thing to understand something clinically, but what was actually going through Christy's mind and body? To understand, we spoke to Carla, a woman who experienced pseudocytosis directly.

Carla Jenkins, I am someone who has experienced pseudoscience.

Much like Jared and Christy, Carla and her partner had only been together for a few months when they found out they were pregnant.

Alex and I didn't think that we could have kids. He's been through, like, some chemo years ago, so we were really really surprised that we even got pregnant. It wasn't purposeful. It just kind of happened. It was a very big deal to us because of the fact that, you know, we were both kind of in shock about it.

Carla had already missed 2 periods when they made the appointment with an OB. So on her first visit, she was given an ultrasound.

Got an appointment with my OB. We were at already, like, 9 weeks. We meet with our OB. Before we go in to meet with him, they do, like, an internal ultrasound, which is what they would do, typically at that time just to see if there's a heartbeat, and they couldn't find 1. Carla was experiencing a phantom pregnancy,

and she didn't know why. She still doesn't. There aren't a lot of answers partly because the condition is so rare in this country. A fact confirmed by doctor Baird.

Yes. Yeah. It's very rare in the US. It's actually more common in developing countries where a woman's fertility is really, an important part of, like, hers value as a woman. So you see a lot more of this in more developing countries where they are not able to get pregnant and produce children.

They feel that they're not valuable. And maybe perhaps, like, their partner would not stay with them in otherwise.

Making things more complicated is the fact that even the doctors who treat pseudocytosis aren't entirely sure what causes it.

The number of different kind of theories about what causes pseudocytosis. I think what's important to note is that typically you have to look at the individual and kind of think what it what is this serving for this particular patient. So a lot of times it's women that struggle with infertility or, women that are coming to the end of their fertility window and are realized, I never had a child, and I really want a child. I there's some kind of underlying reason that they need to believe that they're pregnant. Also, you know, looking at the research about pseudoscience, and there's not a lot, by the way, there's this association with sometimes trauma, particularly loss.

So not just loss of, fertility, but, like, loss of a child or even loss of a relationship, loss of a parent. There is this need sometimes to when you lose somebody that you're close to wanting to recreate a relationship or be close to somebody or have some kind of, you know, relationship to replace that 1. So there is this association, with trauma.

So since psuedosiasis is caused by trauma, I assume Carla's doctors would offer her resources to support her.

Yeah. In terms of the emotional support piece of it, it seemed, like that wasn't the focus at that time. And obviously, I was, like, you know, started crying really hard, and was super emotional about the whole thing. And so is my partner. He made it very scientific, which was upsetting for me.

I I think we there's a little bit of, I guess, like like, resentment, but he was he wasn't as warm as I would expect, like, an OB to be in a situation like that.

Carla immediately accepted in her mind that she was not pregnant. And her body, in her own words, had just not caught up.

It was just very shocking that my body, like, didn't flew in to the fact that there was no baby farming. Like, why wouldn't our bodies recognize that?

Carla believed the doctors that there was no fetus in her uterus, but that's not always true for everyone. Doctor Baird again.

I think it depends on how much insight awareness the individual has. Like, can they look at the reasons why they developed this disorder and what purpose it was serving for them? Are they able to talk about and process whatever trauma or loss or underlying reason that they developed this type of disorder? I think that's really what matters. Some people that don't have as much insight and can't really acknowledge what's going on, that would be a much more difficult patient to treat, but someone that can really process and look at the underlying kind of, you know, motivations for developing this disorder, that's a treatable individual.

Additionally,

pseudocytosis doesn't function in a vacuum.

Yeah. I mean, I think from that perspective of realizing that, there was I I definitely understood that there was a disconnect, and I was very disappointed in my body. Like, I was very upset with my body, because of the fact that my brain understood that there was no fetus, but my body just kept like, it there was no connection to the 2, which is insane.

For some women, even after it's unequivocally clear that they are not pregnant, it's still hard for them to accept that they never were.

Because I think if if you get to the point of, like, there's somebody that can't can't acknowledge that this is not real, that's almost more of this psychotic kind of delusional disorder.

Much like other mental health disorders, it exists on a spectrum with other mood and personality disorders.

Definitely, depression, anxiety, borderline personality for sure. I think once again if we look at what's the theme with borderline personality is, the fear of abandonment or loss. So somebody with borderline is definitely more likely to develop something like pseudocyesis as a way to maybe cope with loss and not feel a loss or abandonment.

Can you explain briefly the difference between

bipolar disorder and borderline disorder?

Yeah. So bipolar is a mood lability disorder. Somebody that experiences like periods of mania and then severe depression, they need a mood stabilizer to really able and borderline is more of a per it's a personality disorder. They are kind of see the world in black and white, all good, all bad, everything split. The idealization like they have this fear of losing that person that they've idealized, the object, the relationship, the individual that's so ideal that they feel they can't live without, but then eventually that person disappoints them and then they become devalued.

So they go from being on a pedestal to being

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Hey, guys. I'm Kate Max.

You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout?

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Shit.

It was at this point that I shared with doctor Baird the specifics about Christy's case. Prior to now, I had not shared with her the specific details, including that Christy went to the hospital to give birth. She was shocked, to say the least.

I mean, this yeah. This I I think it's interesting, though, because she knew what she was doing then. Almost borders on more of, like, a factitious disorder, perhaps, because she knows that she's deceiving unless there's this split off part of her that

Is that possible?

Yeah. It is. I think with somebody who's very borderline, so the split there's a split off part of her that is acting and doing these things. That part of her is so split from the other part of her that's believing she's pregnant and carrying these children. And so those parts of her don't live in this integrated whole person.

They're split into almost 2 separate people.

Factitious disorder is when a patient intentionally falsifies medical or psychiatric symptoms similar to Munchausen or Munchausen by proxy. But doctor Barrett is also posing the possibility that Christie is severely bifurcated or split, which would mean that only part of her is intentionally deceptive, while the other part believes she's actually pregnant.

Yes. I need to like, that's another aspect integrated into the part of her that's posting online. So these are 2 split parts, really, of her. I mean, that's that's a severe borderline for you. Who's that?

Fragmented? Who yeah. It's split off. We all do this to some degree. Like, we have different parts of ourselves.

Right? But we're not so split that they don't exist when there's 1 part that you know? Like, we all have different aspects of our personality, but, usually, we're more integrated so that, like, the part of us that acts a certain way at the grocery store while in line is the same as the part of you that's, like, a professional in the office. I mean, that to me seems like what was going because I'm like, if it's factitious, then what's her point? You know?

What's the point of just, like, you know, deceiving everybody? Somebody that splits so much and splits off parts of you, they never have to be confronted in a way. Right.

And if you bring it to her, she'll

be like, what? No. That's not I don't know what you're talking about. You know? Yeah.

And the body goes along with it.

Christie's body carried her phantom pregnancy to the scheduled due date. 9 months of a powerful mind body connection. Was there anything that could have given away that she wasn't pregnant? In spite of my in-depth quizzing, Jared didn't think so. Did she get a period?

Not that I know of.

Did she have breast tenderness or breast enlargement?

She complained about it probably in the last 3 months. How about abdominal enlargement? Yep. Looked like a beach ball.

How about nausea?

It was terrible the first trimester. Run to the bathroom every 5 minutes.

How about weight gain?

It was quick. In the face Mhmm. The at first is what I noticed was her face got very round, but then it started going to the abdomen and that was kind of all I noticed.

How about having to pee frequently?

All the time. It was even more constant than being sick.

Really?

I mean, pull over. I gotta go to the bathroom, find the next gas station. And I mean, we would only go 15 minute trips. Right. We had to stop and go to the bathroom.

I'm like, I've never seen anyone else have to go to the bathroom.

Well How about food cravings?

Ice cream, Dairy Queen. I don't know how many times I'd go Dairy Queen at 10 o'clock at night. She always wanted to get 1 of those, snickerdoodle blizzards. It's it's a I don't know. It's just overpriced ice cream with candy in it.

Was Christy complaining about pain in her sciatic nerve during her pregnancy?

Yes. I mean, it was so bad that she had to go to a specialist massage lady for pregnant ladies twice a week.

Christie checked off each box.

Her breasts were even leaking milk. It was everything was crazy of how it was happening.

Jenny, Christie's former best friend, also witnessed the ways that pseducesis affected Christy physically.

Whenever Jared's mom said your belly dropped, when I tell you it literally looked like it dropped, it dropped.

The hospital staff was so concerned about Christy's behavior on the ward that they decided to check her Facebook page, and they agreed with Jared and Jenny and everyone else we talked to. Christy looked pregnant.

So the AOC, she while we were on the phone, she also told me that they had looked at her Facebook. They saw that I tagged her in that. They saw the pictures. They had seen the the picture of the placard with the McGee, what do they call them, onesies. They saw that it was posted by me, tagged her in it.

All these people saw what they had saw, that she looked pregnant, all these pictures, like those maternity pictures. Yes. And she informed me that. And she didn't look like the same person when she walked out of the hospital.

Christie didn't look like the same person when she was escorted out of the hospital in handcuffs.

Like, it was gone. It was like you pump up the beach ball and it gets a hole in it and it's just empty.

Jenny also noticed after the births, Christy's pregnant belly disappeared.

Whenever we were at the rental house, there was no sign of a belly, just her regular body fat.

This piece of information was shocking to me, even though I have no idea why it would be after everything else Jared has told me, but it was. I had questions. Did Christy's belly deflate because she believed she gave birth, or did her belly deflate as a result of the confrontation she had in the hospital that led to her being escorted out in handcuffs by 2 police officers?

I mean, when you're looking at these pictures we have in front of us, I mean, it's it's like, where does that go?

Hospital administration checked Christy's Facebook page and learned that she had spent the last 9 months living as a pregnant woman. Here's some of the posts they would have seen. This is me reading Christy's posts to Jared. Picture of baby clothes and some stuffed animals are 2 signs. 1 reads

Adding a bit more love.

The other reads

Coming soon.

Comments beneath read Congratulations. Can't wait. So excited.

So happy for you 2. We are over the moon.

Christie's aunt writes

Hello, Christie. I did not know you were pregnant. Wonderful. Do you know what you're having and the expected date? You look beautiful.

Lots of love. Aunt Kelly.

Christie responds.

I'm pregnant with twins, a boy and a girl. My due date is December 7th, but they won't let me go past November 21st. It's been a long time since seeing you. Miss you.

Here's a post of Christie's from June 10, 2020. A picture of Christie's pregnant belly and a chalkboard reading

Akron babies, 10 weeks, measuring 3.2 centimeters and 2.9 centimeters. Size of kumquats.

It doesn't stop there. June 27th, a picture of Christie's pregnant belly and a chalkboard reading

Akron babies 13 weeks, size of plums. Another picture of Christie's pregnant belly with the caption Big growing stage for the babies.

Caption Big growing stage for

the babies.

Babies have popped off mom's sciatic nerve, finally. In all caps. And have moved. So much better. Jared was clearly

uncomfortable with hearing some

of this.

Anger. I mean, lots of it. Just hearing her when when you're saying it, all I hear is her voice remembering taking all those pictures, the time wasted, the lies, the sequel.

Finally, we have

a picture of a very pregnant Christie sitting on the floor of a super adorable nursery looking at her watch with her mouth agape.

Sign reads

Me. I'm exhausted. Apple Watch. You have taken 9 steps today. Hashtag almost done.

All caps. Did you build this nursery?

Yes. I I'd probably have to say that it was that I know that all that time in my life is wasted. Nothing was what was genuine and true? And then that's looking back on it, I feel like I wasted that time, and I know I'm not gonna get it back. But just hearing that again kinda threw me for a curveball because I haven't thought of those words until you read them all.

Jared talked to me about the last photo shoot they did in the nursery that did not go particularly smoothly.

That was a disaster. Why? I bet you we had a half hour wrapped up in taking that picture fixing a pegboard. Oh, I don't like the lighting. Oh, my belly looks weird.

I'm like, it's it's a picture. It's yes. You have them forever. But if you're that worried about what other people perceive and, oh, it's not a perfect picture Mhmm. Are are you looking for that picturesque life?

But there had to be every bit of a 100 pictures I'd take.

Yeah. At at

the end of it, I'm just like, okay. Let me hold the shutter so it just takes a couple hundred time.

And there was something about posting to social media that made Christie change.

It was like a flip of a switch. Okay. Let me just stare at my phone for the rest of the day tomorrow. There was no, okay, I posted it for people to see. Yes.

I understand that part. But to obsess over, oh, look, they like this picture. Someone commented, I'm like, great. I just that that doesn't appeal to me. It's a waste of my time to sit there.

She would fall asleep playing on her phone.

Christie and Jared did not get the same high off posting on social media, and he believes that the thrills and attention she received from posting as a pregnant woman played a big part in what was going on with her.

Take a picture of my belly. It doesn't look big enough. At this point, I'm just like, alright. I I hold the just shutter button where it takes a couple hundred every second. I'm like, here you go.

Pick 1 out. Because she wanted she was so into that in that chalkboard. There was a chalkboard. She wrote, like, x amount of weeks. I'm like, you know what?

We'll just do it. Do the shutters. You can take your picture. Made her happy. But she was.

She was all into putting it all over social media. Like, wanted that attention, wanted that, oh, look, you're having twins. You're not just pregnant with 1. It's twins. And I think that goes into kind of feeding that psychosis that she was in.

9 months of post after post after post, and then on December 10, 2020 comes the Paramount post. Chrissy has Jared post a picture of 2 babies she was passing off as theirs, and Jared felt complicit.

Well, how did you get the that board I made, the pegboard into this picture? Or did you just pull some picture off the Internet, photoshop this in there, send it to me, make me look like an ass on Facebook after you wrote everything you told me to put in there?

Right. She sent you the caption.

Correct. The entire thing. I didn't put anything in there.

Copy and paste.

Copy and

Almost 4 years later, and Jared still has no idea where Christy got the photographs that she asked him to post announcing the arrival of their twins.

I mean, you look at those photos, after I find out, okay, you didn't give birth. Where in the hell did you get that picture from? Those were McGee Hospital onesies. Did you find that on the Internet? Did you take that in person?

Jared was not alone in his quest to find out where Christy found those babies. His best friend Molly was determined to find out.

My dad had called me at work and had told me that this was all a sham, and I was very upset and angry. And so I was convinced that I was gonna prove that she was a liar. I was at work at the time, and I had my 2 associates with me. We were on Google for the rest of our 4 hour shift trying to find the picture of the babies.

We did a reverse image search on those pictures, and we could not find it. We did Bing and Google, but we we tried to search and reverse search and

And we even went to McGee Hospital Facebook page and went all the way back through all of their labor and delivery posts. We tried Washington Hospital because they had the similar blankets. And then there was some other place we looked to, but we could I don't know where she got the pictures because they weren't on the Internet.

There was hundreds of comments. Congratulations. Let me know if you need anything. It was all over the place, and that's just the way that kinda goes. And I I just I don't know how you can find that picture, hide it from a reverse image search, get that photoshopped, and send it to someone, and pass it off as your own.

I mean, it's just it's tough to understand.

Where did she find those babies? And why did she send them to Jared to post to the world when they didn't exist? Like most things relating to Christie, we were looking for answers. But with each answer, more questions are raised.

Where where was where was her endgame?

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Hey, guys. I'm Kate Max.

You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout?

Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's light hearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the Iheartradio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

We searched a long time to find someone who would talk on record. Carla was similar to Christy and that she had experienced a phantom pregnancy, but that's where the similarities end.

So that was really shocking, obviously, when you're having some pregnancy symptoms and then, you know, you're it's only 9 weeks in, but you're kind of expecting that you would hear a heartbeat. You don't think anything's gonna go wrong.

For Carla and her partner, Alex, the news from the doctor was abrupt but true.

He basically sat down and said, I think I'm trying to remember exactly, like, how it happened because my brain has probably blocked it out from, like, PTSD. And so it he said, so we're not seeing a fetus.

Carla was told that even though her body is indicating to her that she is pregnant, there is no fetus in her uterus.

Still, like, looks like I'm I still feel pregnant, look like I'm pregnant. I'm about, I think, 11 weeks in at that point. Again, my body hadn't clued in to the fact that there was no fetus.

Her doctor explained that her pregnancy symptoms should go away now that she knows the truth.

I think the emotional process was difficult, but it was it was something that really, like, worried me in terms of my future.

Carla felt that this doctor was not as warm as she would have thought he would be given the situation. She felt resentment towards him for his indifference. Doctor Barrett explained that in her opinion, this approach to a psychosomatic disorder is common and part of the problem.

I think we're still have a long ways to go, as far as Western medicine and these psychosomatic disorders. I think a lot of, people that come in, first of all, presenting with a psychosomatic disorder, they come into, like, the ER with symptoms are misdiagnosed. This psychological component is missed or it's just they're set they're told that it's all in their head. They're not really experiencing real symptoms, which they are. But, yeah, there there is a psychological aspect, and I think that needs to be acknowledged, but not in a way that's, like, pejorative, you know, in a way that's, like, we look at the holistic picture here, the mind and body.

Like, if there's something going on physically and we don't see the medical kind of underlying origin, then let's look at what's going on psychologically, you know.

Sadly, none of that was explained to Carla.

Anyways, it was just very shocking that my body, like, didn't flew in to the fact that there there is no baby forming. Like, why wouldn't our bodies recognize that?

It wasn't like her body wasn't showing symptoms. It was real.

So I think I had missed my period, and my boobs were pretty, like, sore. Like, I could tell, like, physically things were kind of weird or off. So physically, I I noticed that, maybe something was, like, you know, awry.

This was all clearly a very difficult experience for Carla, but she still finds a way to make light of it.

So it was pretty it it was funny because I I think what we said the whole time I had this, like, I I joked about it, which was so messed up, but, I had this feeling. And I kept on joking about how I was like, oh, there's probably, like, nothing in my like, it's probably not even a real thing. And then we get there, and the doctor's like, oh, there's no like, this baby has ghosted you is what we keep saying. Like, it's ghosted us. It's gone.

It never it never, like, showed up to the party that I was invited to in my uterus. And, it's so I feel like maybe deep down, I kind of knew something was off.

And for Carla, there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

I've gotten pregnant since I have a baby. So we have a 15 month old. He's very cute. Just even after the fact, you know, it it felt like I was very alone. And I think that's why I wanted to, like, share with my family because, so many women go through this without any support and it's really disappointing and, like, hard for us.

And it shouldn't be, you know. I mean, it should be, but we we should be open more open about it, I would say, so that you don't feel as alone. And I remember vividly thinking, like, how hard how hard this must be for women who don't have partners or, like, don't have any support system.

Carla attributes the fact that she understood and accepted that there was no fetus immediately because she works in the medical field and generally trusts doctors.

Yeah. I I think that as as someone who is like kind of science brained, I would say that it was much easier for me to come to terms with it. I mean, it was shocking. I I did ask questions, like, when is my body gonna figure this out? Because it you would hope that your body would understand.

Not having any idea what Christy went through, Carla expressed her opinion that she could understand how some people might not accept what the doctors are saying. We know that Christy was going to the hospital for doctor's appointments regularly because Jared took her there. But what we don't know is prior to the birth, how many times was Christy told she was not pregnant?

It's just crazy that how that, like, tie hasn't been made in our bodies, that your body wouldn't pick up on the fact that there's nothing growing in addition to your, like, brain being told that. So for me, the connection was confusing. I think I knew that there was nothing to be done. Like, it was over. I needed to move on.

I needed to more I needed to get as much support as possible from the people around me to to do be able to do that. I think for someone who may not have or may not be as, like, strong of mind or may have, like, other, mental health issues happening. Yeah. I could see it definitely being something that would would not be feasible. Like, you just wouldn't be able to connect because your body is still pregnant.

Like, you're still feeling hormonal.

I go back to doctor Baird and the possibilities of Christy's mental health issues that her actions paint the portrait of someone with severe borderline personality disorder. If those issues did exist from a psychoanalytic standpoint, they'd have a strong part to play in Christie carrying a phantom pregnancy for 9 months. If Christie did see a doctor and hear the truth, did part of her mind just stow it away? Was living the life of a pregnant newlywed posting every pregnancy update for the world to see that important to her? It's possible.

Doctor Barrett has seen similar.

It was a woman who had struggled with infertility for years and finally was able to, get pregnant, and she gave birth. And her child was very sick, and so she then dedicated her life to taking care of this very sick child that had a number of health problems over the years. And it really destroyed her marriage because she was so busy with the child, and the husband was working all the time. And then she got pregnant again, and and she was so excited. And then come to find out, it was a false pregnancy.

And she ended up going to therapy and really working on it, but realized that she had this fantasy of actually having a healthy child, and that's what this child was gonna be for her. Yeah. Because she did have a child, but that was caused trauma to her too, having a sick child that she had to care for. So there was this sort of underlying fantasy for her of what that pregnancy was gonna be to her. So I think for each individual that develops pseudocyesis, you kind of look at what fantasy they're trying to fulfill with with the pregnancy.

In addition to trusting the science behind it, Carla says it was the image on the ultrasound that caused her 100% to accept what the doctor was telling her.

I believed what I saw on the ultrasounds. That photo, because you're you're in the room while they're doing an ultrasound and you can see it. They show you, that there's, you know, what it looks like. And so I could and now that I've had a baby, I can tell, obviously, what the difference is, at, like, a 9 week scan versus, you know, it's a little nugget, versus the missing baby 9 week scan.

Jared saw images of his babies too.

There was some pictures of sonograms.

Even at the gender reveal according to Jared's friend, Sarah.

We had a

gender reveal, and she had real sonograms. And I I remember looking at the sonograms and seeing her name, and I was like, oh, well, her name's on it. Obviously, they're real sonograms because her name's on it. She had 1 of 1 of each baby with her name on it, the date.

But the sonograms that Jared saw were fake.

It's 19.99 plus shipping.

At this point, the lines are completely blurred. Christie experienced pseducesis, but she also faked her pregnancy.

Oh, yeah. It's a picture perfect family, which furthest thing from the truth.

And unfortunately for Jared, we haven't even begun to scratch the surface. Next time on The Unborn.

They called them baby snatchers.

She had planned to kill the 1 baby off. And then since the 1 baby was dead, bring another baby home. I think if she went through this whole 9 months of tricking everybody, stealing a baby wouldn't be that far off.

I had seen her in person, and you'd be like, oh, yeah. She's pregnant. She's definitely got 2 babies in there. You would never have known.

How did this all happen?

It is a full blown psych disorder.

Police warned here to the hospital when this was reported that grandmother told me a woman posing as the mother's sister came here dressed in scrubs and somehow removed the baby from the nursery as the family was preparing to be discharged today.

The unborn is a production of Iheart podcasts, audio up, and JeSuite press productions. Created by Tricia Lafoch and Frank Rodriguez Malle. Produced by Alvin Cohen and Rachel Foley. Executive produced by Jimmy Jelinek, David Thwaites, and Jared Gustav. Edited by Gerard Bauer and Preston Dawson.

Sound design and mixing by Jeremiah Zimmerman.

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Hey, guys. I'm Kate Max.

You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the Iheartradio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Join Iheartmedia chairman and CEO, Bob Pittman, for a special episode of the hit podcast, math and magic, stories from the Frontiers of Marketing, as he interviews the iconic and prolific Martha Stewart in front of a live audience in celebration of her 100th book.

Did you ever think you

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Yeah. It's just a minor goal.

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