Something Was Wrong - S18 E7: [Amy S. + Audrey] Birth Fetish

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

*Content Warning: death, fraud, stillbirth, pregnancy loss, infant loss, doula fraud, sexual assault, rape, false reporting, blood, medical trauma, medical fraud, factitious disorder, birthing fetish, psychological violence. *Sources:Info on Pseudocyesis (sometimes also referred to as “hysterical pregnancy: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24255-pseudocyesis via Cleveland ClinicInfo on Factitious disorder (sometimes also referred to as “Munchausen syndrome”): https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/factitious-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20356028 via Mayo Clinic Info on Fetishism: https://www.britannica.com/science/fetishism-psychology via Britannica The Pregnancy Was the Con: How One Woman Allegedly Tricked Countless Doulas Into Helping Deliver a Fake Baby, Cosmopolitan, by Sarah Treleaven. Published September 13th 2023: https://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/a44866427/kaitlyn-braun-doula-pregnancy-accused-fraud-harassment/Free + Confidential Resources + Safety Tips: somethingwaswrong.com/resources SWW Merch: merch.cameo.com/store/somethingwaswrong Follow Something Was Wrong on IG: instagram.com/somethingwaswrongpodcastFollow Tiffany Reese on IG: instagram.com/lookiebooArtwork by the amazing Sara Stewart:@GreaterThanOkay - Instagram.com/greaterthanokaySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening, Add Free, on Wondering Plus. I'm going deep into my wife's family history, digging up the cold case of her murdered great grandmother. And did I mention that I'm looking into whether the murderer was actually the beloved family patriarch? Binge all episodes of Ghost Story, Add Free, right now, on Wondering Plus. Something was wrong is intended for mature audiences. It discusses topics that can be upsetting

and triggering, such as emotional, physical, and sexual violence, suicide, child abuse, and murder. Content warnings for each episode are at the top of episode notes. And confidential and free resources for survivors can be found linked in our episode notes as well as on our website, somethingwaswrong.com slash resources. Some survivor names have been changed for anonymity purposes. Testimony shared by guests on the show is their own, and does not necessarily reflect the views of myself,

something was wrong, broken cycle media, or wondering. The podcast and any linked materials should not be construed as medical advice, nor is any of the information a substitute for professional medical expertise or treatment. Thank you so much for listening. You think you know me, you don't know me well Head on, head on You don't know anybody until you turn to one Rice, so you're reaching out to other local duels in the area that I knew Coming to find somebody that was supporting people through loss. One of my doula friends reached out to one of the

doulas that worked under her and asked her if she was available. She had supported people through loss before. So her and I chatted and that turned out to be Audrey. to be Audrey. Hi, my name is Audrey. I first met Tateline in February of 2023. I am a PSW stands for personal support worker. That means that I work on nursing teams. I work in nursing homes. Most of my experience is looking after people with mental illness or Alzheimer's, a lot of palliative care, that sort of thing. I'm usually the person who is doing showers and baths and feeding people and just their general care. I've been doing this since 2008. It's been a long time that I've worked in healthcare. What motivated you to get into healthcare? So two things happened to me when I was young.

One was my dad passed away. I was 15 and he passed away of a heart attack. It was really sudden and it's kind of deep and dark for me because I was supposed to be with him when he passed away. That's something that's always carried with me. I Understand that as a 15-year-old I could not have handled that situation and it's a gift that I wasn't there. But it's always sat with me that he passed away alone. So the idea of being able to sit with people and bring them comfort in their last days and hours, that brings me comfort. Being able to be there for somebody else's loved one in those situations, it brought me healing. Three months after

that, my grandfather passed away, my paternal grandfather, my dad passed away, and then his dad passed away three months later. And because after my dad had passed away, I was spending a lot of time at my grandma's house. I really witnessed the ins and outs of his dementia. I met his PSWs who would come to do home care to relieve my grandma so she could go do a class or something like that. I met them again when he was palliative and in the hospital and I thought these people are amazing. They're doing so much for my family right now because no one had to worry about his care. That was just taken care of. They were like angels. So that is what inspired me right after high school to go and get my certification and be a PSW and find out if nursing was really for me.

Thank you so much for sharing that. I'm incredibly sorry for both of your losses. How did you come to know Caitlin, Bronn? A doula in my community, she'd messaged a couple of other doulas and she happened to message the agency that I worked for. She was looking for help with somebody who was having a sudden loss. It was going to be a stillbirth 24 weeks.

The message had said that this person was all alone. So my boss at my agency messaged me and asked me if I was available. I happened to be available and in a good headspace for it. I was in school during the week. It was the weekend. It was a Friday. This would be something I could do because I'd had a rough month before. You're going to notice a pattern in me as I tell this story. When something bad happens, I usually jump into helping people and then that makes me feel better about the world, I guess. I'd had a bad January, like a really bad January, and I was ready to be able to jump in

and help another person who was in a traumatic situation. So I said yes, and I knew of this dueling, the community. I hadn't met Amy in person, but I did know of her. So Amy put me in touch with Caitlin. I hadn't been exactly prepared to go to a birth. There were a few things that I had to take care of, like getting in a oil change and whatnot. So I was texting back and forth with Caitlin, just trying to reassure her that I was going to be there. At that point, I knew that she was young, that she was going through a very traumatic situation, that she was alone in that traumatic situation.

And I knew that this other doula had been with her since Wednesday of that week. So she'd been there for quite a bit. She was tired, had to go home, that kind of thing. And it looked like nothing was moving. We said a time for me to be there. Amy did tell me that she had a friend with her. And that really seemed to legitimize the whole thing. It seemed like a really legit scenario. I'd been texting with her and I said, okay, I'll be there round five. Because I had to take care of my own stuff first. I got the address of the Airbnb. I knew it was an Airbnb. I have had clients in Airbnb's before because we have a really big hospital in our city. It's not uncommon for people to come stay in an Airbnb before they decide to

deliver. And in this case, she was having a stillbirth, and some people do want a lot of privacy for that. This is the story that I was being told, because she had gone into labor herself. She really wanted to try it on her own without an induction. Stillbirth is a space where you really want to honor what the client needs. And if the client needs.

And if the client needs to be out of the hospital laboring and they have that chance, as a doula, of course, I'm gonna support that, because that's empowering to the client. It's supposed to be their experience. I'm never there in a capacity of trying to convince somebody to do things that they don't wanna do. I'm simply a support person.

I knew that if things seemed to be coming along, like if I got there and she was heavy into labor, I know what to do in that situation. I would call for an ambulance. I know when to call for help. I was contacted on the Friday and then I got to her on the Saturday. Do you happen to know the date? I believe it was February 17th. I get there and I parked and she had texted me.

I believe the text was, the door is open. I will probably be naked when you come in. And that seemed so weird. But I was already parked out back and getting out of my car by the time she texted me that. I texted her back that I would prefer that she answered the door, so that I know that I'm in the right location, that I've got the right person. But as I'm walking up to the door, I had this thought, I don't think I'll ever forget this moment. I wondered if I was

being kidnapped. If I was being lured into an Airbnb. And I think that was my instincts telling me, like, something's not right with this one. There's nothing obviously wrong, but there's something not quite right. This is how I convinced myself to walk in. I thought, oh, well, wait a second. That's silly, because my doula partner was here. There's all these other factors

that are legitimizing the situation, and then I just knocked on the door, and she did answer, she wasn't naked, thankfully. She was in pajamas, she was in loose clothing, her hair was in two braids. She almost looked like a small child. I mean, like, her presence was so playful, she just seemed immature. But then I remember she's 24. Of course, she's gonna seem immature to me. In this book that I've been reading dying to be ill, they describe a lot of people with fictitious disorder

that when they're in the hospital setting that they become giddy and they can't hide how excited they are to be cared for. Yeah, I would say that she was giddy at times. And I'd never had a client like that, but why would I disbelieve somebody who's telling me that they're having a stillbirth? Who would lie about that? She was unbelievably light-hearted. I

knew grief, especially as Adula is a PSW. I know it strikes people differently and some people do make jokes around death and trauma and dramatic experiences. I am one of those people. I make jokes about my trauma, not other people's drama. That helps me get through the day, but she seemed so happy, like content, and I thought that was really odd, and then I thought, so she's a little bit emotionally disconnected from this situation. Got it. I had been told by Amy that because she had some family trauma, that she was a little bit needy, that she really needed a lot of attention. And I thought this was just going to be a new experience of a different person going through something traumatic and I could take something away from it and learn. That's usually how I approached those sort of new situations. When you got there, was Girlfriend Amy or Dula Amy there?

No, it was just Caitlin. Now, I should mention at this point that Caitlin had told me that she had been to the hospital that day with her friend and that they had told her to walk around and wait for contractions to begin. She told me that her friend had left very suddenly on the Friday saying that it was just too emotionally heavy for her to handle. She had to go. And she said it in a really understanding way. Kate landed. She said it in a really sympathetic way to her friend, which it seemed odd because it seemed like

she was being abandoned. I'd asked her if her friend was ever planning on coming back, because I understood needing to take a break, that seemed pretty reasonable. But she wouldn't give me too many details about this person other than her friend's name was Amy. She described how the friend left. So she was establishing at this point that Amy, the girlfriend, was just a friend, and that there was a separate girlfriend outside of this situation who had just broken up with her just to be clear because it gets complicated. Her girlfriend had just broken up with her through a text. She still seemed incredibly okay for somebody going

through something so awful and when she told me that her girlfriend had broken up with her, it was almost like she was describing getting a flat tire. Like, oh, guess what happened to me this morning? My girlfriend broke up with me. I asked your general questions about what she was doing, where they were going, and she told me that they had gone to a baby boutique. My reaction to reading that text was like, uh, okay. I thought that was really strange, but again, it's not my stillbirth.

I'm not the one who's grieving, so why would I say anything about it? So she told me that she was going to pick out a really nice swaddle for the baby, because she wanted to have her own to swaddle the baby with for pictures afterwards and that's not uncommon. She was walking around and rocking back and forth and then about five minutes after first introductions by contraction hit. I wasn't timing them at that point but it seemed really long. It seemed long enough that I was like, are we going to the hospital? What is happening here? Because you can't predict birth.

Anybody who's had a baby knows just how unpredictable that can be. You can get strong contractions for one hour and then the next hour, something's happened and it's stalled and nothing's happening now. As far as I knew, she was four centimeters because that's what she told my partner at this point. I was thinking, we're right on the edge of I'm to go to the hospital and deliver a baby. I was thinking, she's probably gonna have this baby

tonight. I'd stayed for the evening. I was there probably until about 11. I was just trying to make a comfortable space for her. I figured out how to turn the heat on because it was freezing cold in there. She had piled up pillows and was leaning on them and she was moaning. You heard the recording of. That's pretty much what it sounded like. And she seemed to be having these super long contractions. I pulled out my contraction app and I said I'd like to time your contractions just to keep track of them a little bit. You don't need to worry about them so I could see if there's a pattern. I was doing that but her contractions were so wildly all over

the place. It's not unheard of but one would be 45 seconds and then one would be a minute and a half. Remembering it now, in between her contractions, she would look at her phone. I believe now that she was looking at the time because she was trying to figure out how long she was making these contractions or how short they were. With new clients, I am hyper aware of how touch and trauma intersect. I will establish trust with them verbally first and just talk to them about anything they could be wondering about. In her case, we had talked about the fact that I was a PSW

and she was the one who brought up that I've probably seen a lot of naked bodies. I laughed and I said, yeah, I have. That's an in joke and healthcare. Talk to another PSW. We often have a good laugh about how many body parts we've seen and how it doesn't phase us anymore. But it's not usually something that comes from a client because they're not in that world and they're not in that situation. I've seen people give birth. I've seen people pass away. I've seen a lot. I shower people, even just that daily activity of showering or bathing somebody. I see a lot of body parts and I sort of laugh it off, but I found it really strange how comfortable she was with that fact, because it was kind of an

awkward joke. That conversation sort of centered around that really, really quickly. And I was like, yes, I've seen a lot. That's how it is. That's what my work is. I mean, at some point, somebody who's giving birth, they sort of lose that modesty for a certain period of time. But then after the birth happens, they get it back. There's something that clicks in your mind when you're giving birth to a baby, where the only thing that you're focusing on is this child coming out of your body, be that cesarean section

or a vaginal birth. That's the only thing that your mind is on is the baby. So you don't air people will strip and transition. They'll be like, I'm not and everything is off of them. So there does come a point where that kind of behavior is normal, but at that point, that was not expected at all. With any other client when I first meet them, especially if I were to meet them in labor, they would want to establish trust the same way that I'm wanting to establish trust, which is verbally first, we talk a little bit, you ease into

the situation. So before I started touching her, I asked her permission. I asked her, can I rub your back with that, be comforting to you. I'm always really careful with clients that way, because you never know what trauma somebody has been through, and you don't know what something is innocent as a back rub could bring up for them. At some point, it was almost as if she was taking breaks because there would be a good 15 minutes in between a contraction. And then she would talk some more and tell me about her life. During one of those breaks, she told me that she was a student at Western, that she was in the social work program. And that was why she was at the Airbnb

because she had been living in student housing and she didn't want a work program. And that was why she was at the Airbnb because she had been living in student housing and she didn't want a labor there. She didn't want her roommates to know what was happening until she was ready to tell them. Mom, that makes sense. I don't think I would want to have a stillborn baby or be in labor or explain to anybody what was happening until it was done to. That makes complete sense. I should mention, she kept me very busy. During a normal interaction with a doula client, there's usually times when that client will want to go lay down and rest and be alone. And then they don't want to be alone. There's usually some sort of break. I was kept very, very busy and very, very focused on her because as soon

as there was a quiet moment another bad contraction would hit or something along those lines. Looking back, it seems that any moment that I felt awkward, like something was off, or if I had a look of doubt on my face, that was when a hard contraction would hit a series of them. So then I would be coaching her through contractions that I thought were very, very real. For someone who hasn't been in a labor room, the kind of attention that requires is pretty intense. I can't be on my phone, I can't be texting somebody else

while I'm paying attention to my client and trying to help them work through something so difficult, especially with the stillbirth, because with the stillbirth, every contraction is a reminder that there is a baby that has passed away, or that will pass away very shortly after birth. It could even just be a reminder. The pain is in the same parts of our female bodies that also experience painful trauma too. And that could be anything from medical conditions with your uterus to sexual assault. Having pain in your abdomen like that can be really intense, emotionally. It can remind you of things that have happened that are just awful.

And at some point she did introduce that she had found the bath very comforting. I had offered to draw her a bath and she said yes. I went and did that. She was having contractions in the background as I'm setting things up and I'm trying to find towels and that kind of thing. I remember telling her for her own comfort that I would happily stay outside of the room to let her have her privacy let her labor and comfort in there because we weren't well known to each other and she wasn't at a point in her labor where I felt like she would want somebody in the bathroom with her. It was just like I'll let you have your privacy. She said no no I really want you in here. She was

already in the room as the bath was filling up. She was in no, no, I really want you in here. She was already in the room as the bath was filling up. She was in the doorway and I'm at the bathtub. I said, okay, I guess I can stay here and she had already started taking off her clothes. I remember feeling really surprised by that. Something was wrong tell stories about the behavioral red flags that warn us danger lurks. My new podcast, Ghost Story, asks what happens when red flags go unnoticed for a century? Ghosts aren't real.

At least that's what I've always believed. Sure, odd things happen in my childhood bedroom, but ultimately I shrugged it all off. That is, until a couple of years ago, when I discovered that every subsequent occupant of that house is convinced they've experienced something inexplicable too, including the most recent inhabitant who says she was visited at night by the ghost of a faceless woman. It just so happens that the alleged ghost haunted my childhood room might just be my wife's great grandmother. It was murdered in the house next door by two gunshots to the face. Ghost Story, a podcast about family secrets, overwhelming coincidence, and the things that

come back to haunt us. Follow Ghost Story on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes ad-free right now by joining Wondry Plus. right now by joining Wondering Plus. I was starting to feel uncomfortable at that point. She gets in the bath and I said I think I'll just stay out here in the dining room with my back turned to the door because I'm still trying to protect her privacy and her space and that's clearly not what she wanted but I was so confused and uncomfortable. So I said that I will sit outside in the little dining area in a chair. We can have the door open.

That's what you want. I'll be right here. She labored in the tub for a while, and I was sort of coaching her from a distance. Like, you can do this. Just breathe it out. That's another one done. Try and relax in between doing that sort of gentle coaching. And she suddenly announced that she was dizzy and that the bath was too hot she needed to get out of the bath. And I'm very alone with her. She seems to be struggling to get out of this bathtub. So she's standing, and I'm thinking how do I help her get out of the hot water and over to a more comfortable place. I went into the bathroom because dizziness to me when I'm alone with a client and that client's in a bathtub is

scary. What if she fell? What if she lost her balance? And I'm the only person there to help. I went into the bathroom and I stood beside her. I asked her permission. I said, can I touch you? Can I help you out of the tub? Because consent is so important to me. And this deep awareness I have to drama and how touch can be a trigger. And I want my clients to feel safe with me at all times. She said yes, that I could help her.

She was completely naked at this point. And I was sort of holding on to her arm and to her back to help steady her as she got out of the tub. Because at this point, I believed that she was feeling dizzy. I was admittedly a little afraid that it was a blood pressure issue being that she was in labor. It was a really uncomfortable situation, but I helped her out of the bath and I suggested that we go over to the bed so that she could maybe lay down or sleep or generally rest because she's been really quite active and I was aware that she hadn't slept much. I help her over there. I just walked with her. She labored through a few

contractions and she appeared to be falling asleep in between having contractions. I'm not sure if at some point she actually did fall asleep or if she was pretending the whole time, but it had been 45 minutes since her last contraction. So at that point, it was 10, 30, 11 o'clock at night. I told her that I was going to go home and rest for a couple of hours, but that I would keep my phone near me. I actually didn't live too far away from that Airbnb so that she could just call me if the contractions picked up and then I would be there within a 15 minute window.

It felt really awkward to leave, but I was exhausted. I knew I wasn't going to make it through pulling that all nighter at that point and I still believed that she was in the early stages of labor. So I felt pretty confident about leaving her for a couple of hours and coming back. I went home and I go to bed and I get all set up. My phone's charging beside my head with the volume all the way up, just waiting to hear back from her. And I got a text at around six in the morning saying that the contractions had started up again.

And I said, okay, I'll be right there. The evening before, on the Friday, I had noticed that she didn't have any food or drink in the Airbnb. She'd said that because it was also sudden she didn't exactly have time to plan, she kept saying, oh well we can just order something. Now I have a rule when it comes to clients, when I'm at a birth, I don't spend more than five dollars on them or their family, meaning that I will pick up a bottle of juice or coffees, but beyond that kind of expense, I don't spend money on my clients. It's just a personal boundary for me,

another boundary for me, as a doula, I don't drive clients anywhere. It's sort of expected that they would take care of their own ad fare or their own transportation. And usually somebody in their family is willing to do the job of being the hospital driver. I've never encountered a situation where I was so completely alone with the clients that there was nobody else available to drive this person. Typically, I don't take people in my car. Ever. It's a liability. On my way, I stopped at a Tim Hortons because I'm Canadian. I'd ordered an apple juice and a peach juice and a coffee for

myself. I hadn't seen her drinking anything. Also, she hadn't, at any point, gotten up to go to the bathroom in the hours and hours of the evening that I was there. And I thought that was a bit odd because pregnant women are very famous for having to go to the bathroom a lot, especially during labor because everything's being pushed around in there and it hurts. It's not uncommon for a client to want to go to the bathroom at least hourly at a minimum, even at 24 weeks. I get back there with the juice and I put it in the fridge. She was laying in the bed and she had a couple of contractions there.

I was timing them again. It's pretty early in the morning and I'm under slept because I went home late and then I got up early and went back to her. I've only had maybe five hours of sleep and I am very much the eight to nine hour type of person. She seemed tired, which was to be expected and she still had that sort of child likeness to her, that giddiness. Her contractions started to come closer together and at times they were three minutes apart. So I felt it was time to have that very gentle conversation of how are we going to get to the hospital. And she says, I don't know because my friend left. These contractions are

coming closer together. They're getting more intense. She's in the bed and I asked her if it would be okay if I helped pack up her things We could just go to the hospital and get checked. She's so good at faking labor that I was starting to think is she trying to deliver this baby here in This air being beat because that is not happening. I am not a medical care provider. It would never be appropriate for a doula to be delivering a baby. Even when that accidentally happens, the protocol basically for a doula to follow

is to call 911 and follow exactly what emergency services says to do. If your client says, no, I don't want to go to the hospital, they can't force anybody, no paramedic can force somebody into the hospital. But once you make that call, then you are covering yourself as far as liability goes, should something go wrong, because there's evidence now of this person did try to get help. I did not want that situation to occur. I was really starting to feel like, do you need some medical intervention here? She's been at this for days. It's time to induce. Let's go to the hospital. I did eventually talk her into going and she was really, really

insistent that nobody was going to drive her to the hospital. Nobody could come to get her. She didn't have any supportive family. And so for the first time ever, the only time that I will ever have broken this rule happened, I let her in my car and I drove her to the hospital. I don't regret my actions, but I feel like this story is why that rule even exists. She should not have ever been in my car. I wish I had of stuck to my boundary and said no, we've got to call a cab.

Anything but me driving you in my vehicle to the hospital. But who wants to give that ultimatum to somebody who's having a stillbirth? Either I'm calling an ambulance or you're calling a cab. In the morning, I'm driving her to the hospital and she was oddly comfortable in my car. And anybody listening, who's ever had that drive to the hospital when they're having contractions will tell you, you hate the driver and every bump in the road.

It hurts. It's the worst position to be in. Sitting upright, it's hard on your back, it's so uncomfortable. We get to the hospital and I was surprised by her lack of pain on the way there. She suggested that I just park in the temporary parking and that she would go up and she would text me if she was being admitted. Spoiler alert, she was not admitted, obviously. I walked her in. I insisted on walking her in. Not in a pushy way, but I was like, no, I'm just gonna come with you, release stuff to the elevators.

We go and we mask up because of COVID, staff at the hospital. It seems like it was taking a really long time for her to walk over to the elevators. She's hanging on to me as she's having contractions, and then she's telling me that she's so anxious about going up because she doesn't want them to say no to an induction. Because that was part of her story, believe it or not, was that the hospital said that she had waited too long and she can no longer have an induction because there were so many other people on the induction list and they were just slammed.

I thought it sounded odd because I was pretty sure that if you were having a stillbirth, you were at the top of the list for induction. Out of empathy, out of basic compassion, that's how it works in our hospital. At this point, I was starting to pick up on some very overt weird vibes, but then I thought, okay, something else is going on here, but maybe there's something that she doesn't want me to know. And that could be something like a diagnosis that she doesn't want me to know about, or something like that. Eventually, she works through her anxiety, she takes a deep

breath, she's going to go up the elevators up to the birthing unit triage, and she's going to text me if they admit her and I was so sure they were going to admit her. Because why wouldn't they? She's tried this natural route at this point, it's not working, her labor is stalling. She's stuck in early labor. This person who wants an induction would be like immediately brought it for a stillbirth. And then she texted me and she says, no, they said that because she was in labor, they didn't want to start an induction. They really like her to go into labor naturally. And so she comes back. She told me that she was still four centimeters dilated. And at that point, I was like, okay, where do you want to go from here?

Are there things that you need to get to prepare for the birth? I asked her would she like to go to a pharmacy and we could walk around the parking lot This would give her a chance to pick up pads, tile and all, or things for her recovery. Because most people who haven't given birth before will not have those things on hand, or they won't have enough of them on hand because they don't know what they're in for. So she said yes, and we went over to the shopper's drugstore. We walked up and down the aisles. In the middle aisles of those stores is the baby section. We got halfway through the baby section and I had actually tried to guide her away from that area but it didn't work. It was like she realized

where she was and then she had this very dramatic, I got to get out of this aisle now, type of reaction. I said yes, yes of course. It was actually a few minutes after that. She gets out of the baby aisle. She has another contraction and then she suddenly decides that she's got to get out of there right now. We have to leave. I don't feel good here. And I said, okay, we can go outside, we can go wherever it is that you need to go. She didn't buy anything at the pharmacy. She said, oh no, I have those things. In this tiny backpack she had, apparently she also had pads and tile and all. She gets in my car eventually and she tells me that she's hungry. So she doesn't want to walk around in the area anymore, like she said she did previously. I said, okay, where would you like to go? There's a Tim Horton's near the hospital, there's a couple of

restaurants nearby, whatever you want to do. I said, or we could even just go in the grocery store and you could get something fairly cheap there. Because I was sensing that money might be an issue. Her being a student said, well, I'd really like to walk around outside and try to get my contractions coming. And we go walk around the parking lot, the Tim Hortons in it. I said, yeah, okay, let's go. She'd been saying a lot that she was hungry, but she didn't want to eat. That little boundary, I don't spend money on clients. I didn't give in on that one. Looking back now, I can't prove this, but I think she was trying to get me to buy her food, to buy her takeout. She was having a good time and wanted me to order pizza.

She says, I haven't had breakfast, the nurse said I should get something to eat and then walk around and so it's all right, let's do that. At the Tim Horton, she did actually order food. She was really insistent about me eating enough too. I'm not hungry, I'm good, thanks. I found a really strange that she had ordered coffee of all things. Because some people, when they're pregnant, they can handle coffee and they enjoy it. But for the most part, most of us get heartburn,

really bad. Or it increases your trips to the bathroom. So it's not something that's usually comfortably consumed by pregnant people. I just remember thinking it was a really strange order and a buttered bagel. That was the first time I'd seen her eat in the two days that was with her. She did actually drink the juice that I brought her that morning too, but she chugged it. She drank it really fast. I don't know how to describe that, but it stands out in my mind as one of those tiny little... I call them pink flags After we get out of the Tim Hortons We walked around the parking lot. It was bit cold

So she asked if we could just sit in my car and was like, okay, yeah, let's warm up in there and figure out what we're doing next That was when she started telling me that her mom wasn't supportive of her pregnancy was when she started telling me that her mom wasn't supportive of her pregnancy, but she didn't want her to have baby because in her mom's point of view, she would be a terrible mother. Some really awful things to say to somebody who is accidentally pregnant and wants to keep the baby. She didn't talk about how she became pregnant at that point. She told me in that conversation that she also had a sister and

that sister was traveling in Europe. She hadn't told the sister about the baby passing away yet because her sister wasn't easy to reach so she couldn't just call her. She had to wait until her sister called her and she didn't want to tell her anyway because there was some upcoming wedding that she didn't want to ruin. We discussed a whole recovery plan that she was going to go to her friends and stay there for a couple of weeks because she didn't want to be alone. She was going to take time off of school.

I do remember her telling me that she hadn't had a name picked out for the baby either and that she'd really like to talk about naming the baby. She told me a few of her ideas. She thought about naming the baby Eva. It was something along those lines, but that was a name that she and her girlfriend had come up with, so she really didn't want to use that name anymore

because it would make her extra sad. So she had to pick a new name. This is a good example of how she keeps a person busy. Suddenly you're helping somebody pick out a name for their baby. When she's in the car after Tim Ordens, I said, do you wanna go back to the Airbnb? And she said, we can't, because I had to be out

of there by 11. And I was like, did you tell the hospital that? In my mind, I was thinking, there's no way that any nurse would ever deny somebody a place to stay in that situation. Like they would find a room, even if they really wanted you to continue labor naturally. If they knew she didn't have shelter, there's no way that they would have let her leave that hospital. They would have admitted her. But at that point, because I was still so deeply believing her, I've had these little pink flags, these little doubts come up that are adding

up to something bigger, something weird is going on. I just didn't think that that something weird was her pretending to be pregnant. That specific thought didn't cross my mind until much later on the Saturday evening. It started to flash in my mind very briefly. Is this real? This has to be real. I was also thinking about taking care of myself throughout the process, too. Even though she's having a stillbirth, it can still be upsetting and draining for a doula to support somebody through that experience because you are also anticipating seeing a dead infant at some point. That is hard work.

I was also in that scenario trying to take care of myself and remember that it's her traumatic moment, but I've also got to take care of me and I've also got to remember to take time after this for myself to process. It's not your trauma, you're not the one who's going through it, but you feel something for them. It's empathy, right? It's just basic empathy. So she tells me that she has no place to stay.

And I was like, okay, what are we going to do about this? And she goes, I don't know. And then she kept me really busy with more contractions. Then she announced that her friend who had left had decided very kindly to rent her an Airbnb. She was on her phone in between contractions quite a bit. I believe that is how she was securing a place to go. And I don't know how she was securing a place to go.

And I don't know if she paid for it. I don't know if she conned someone else into paying for it. She says, my friend was so kind to rent another Airbnb for me. We just have to wait until it's ready and it'll be ready at one o'clock. And I said, okay, what would you like to do in between now and then? Because there's a couple of hours to wait. She suggested that we go to the grocery store to pick up some food for labor and recovery. I was very supportive of that because this was the first time I could get her to do something to look after herself. She'd been going on and on and on about how hungry she was and how she didn't know what to

eat, she didn't want to eat. So we go over to the grocery store, we get out of the car. That was when she decided to announce to me that she had been raped and that this baby was a product of that rate. I don't remember her exact words when she said it, but I do remember my emotional reaction, I was stunned because that had not come up in conversation until that point. I responded to her with empathy, and then she told me that it had been such a violent sexual assault that she had needed surgery afterwards. And that's why she didn't like going to the hospital because she had to go through the same area of the hospital to get to the birthing unit that she had to go through for the surgery. I remember thinking that's the thing that I'm picking up on, the thing that feels off. That's what she didn't want me to know then.

Okay, well that's starting to make more sense. After she essentially trauma-dumps this story on me, we go into the grocery store. We were walking around the grocery store and something kind of changed at that point in her mood because she had gone from having quiet contractions in the other stores, not wanting to draw attention to herself, to suddenly she was squatting in the middle of the grocery store in a contraction. I took that as a sign at the time that maybe her labor was becoming more intense and we needed to rack up what we were doing. She picks out things like granola bars and soup and popcorn. We get it all into my car, keep in mind in between she has contractions and then she doesn't, she could go 20 to 30 minutes without a contraction and then five would hit

really hard in a row that are like three to five minutes apart. So we give the car and I say, well why don't we just wait near the Airbnb? That way we're close by to it. You seem fairly comfortable in the car or we can just find a nice quiet area to go Walking in something along those lines She does agree to that and then we get there we're sort of chatting Waiting it out and she's making jokes. She's a really dark sense of humor and I have a dark sense of humor too, but this was a little Off-putting. It felt really awkward to me at this point, because she made a joke about having her

stillborn baby in my car. I remember feeling so disturbed. She must have picked up on that, because boom, long hard contraction would happen. Eventually, we get into the Airbnb, so this is the second Airbnb, and this is where things get more intense for me. I think this is a trauma reaction, but for the most part, I generally block out and don't think about this time. The last time that I went through this part of the story was in the Brandford Police Station. We get into the Airbnb

and I help her put her groceries away. She seemed really happy to be there. I thought it was a sense of relief. She's got a place to go and we sort of explore it. The whole time she's sort of joking around and giggling. When we got in there and she was settling in, she grabbed the bed that she wanted to use, and she shook it, and she said this would make a great sex bed.

I didn't see anything out loud, but I was so uncomfortable with that joke. You're telling me all these heavy things about your sexual assault, about your trauma, about processing stillbirth. All of these things, and you're making jokes about a sex bed. What? The bathtub was kind of gross, so I started cleaning it out. I set up a bath for her at a lower temperature than before because the first bath incident I was worried that was my fault that I had misjudged the temperature of the water. She said that she wanted to get into the bath again, and I helped her into the bath.

She would say, oh, I need it warmer in here than she would turn off the heat. And then she would say, I'm hot and I'm dizzy again. It was a lot of in and out of the bathtub and shower. And first, she would just be in different positions. Sometimes she'd be squatting, leaning, or whatever, but she's fully nude. I remember helping her back out, and I asked her if she had a change of clothes in her bag, and she said, no, I just have what I was wearing. I thought that was a little odd.

That she didn't want to change her clothes between these two days. But I didn't question it. She put on a house coat. She said that she wanted to labor on the bed. And things were getting more intense. At this point, it sort of jumbles together because it was a lot of, I want to labor in the bed, now I want to go back in the shower. I couldn't tell you how many times she actually stripped in front of me.

I have no way of being able to accurately remember that because it was just so much. At some point she was on the bed and She was kneeling and I was on the floor because the way that I like to give support is face-to-face so that she could hear me speak in a low tone so that she could hear me speak in a low tone. Sometimes, some clients benefit from being able to look up and make eye contact in between contractions, but it gives me a good chance to read what's going on, just by being close to my client that way.

She had asked me to rub her back at that point. She was completely naked on the bed, and I was giving her this back rub in between contractions. I'm the only other person there. So she gets into the bed and she's laboring. I was at her head. I couldn't quite see what she was doing otherwise.

Like, I could see her face and her shoulders and I could hear her. I was talking her through contractions, but I couldn't see her face and her shoulders, and I could hear her. I was talking her through contractions, but I couldn't see her hands. And she was really, really leaning hard on her shoulders, almost hanging off the edge of the bed. And she had said that that was very comforting to her. I was getting really tired of kneeling, and I needed a drink of water.

She seemed to be resting, so I had just quietly gotten up. And when I left the room, I looked back at her. Again, she was naked, she's kneeling, she's sort of hanging off the bed, and I don't think she realized that I had gotten up and moved, and I could see her hand between her legs. I was really, really shocked.

I felt so uncomfortable. What is happening? The fleeting thought was that she had been touching herself while I was at her head giving her back massages, talking her through gently, giving her the general doula labor coaching. I remember when I was like, that's not right, that can't be what's happening.

I think she must have realized that I had moved because she quickly moved her hand from between her legs. She said, I was just checking for fluid. I thought I felt something leaking. I walked out of the room and I got myself a glass of water because that was such odd behavior from a client. Another one of her contractions hit really hard. So I put my water down and I go back in the room. She was still in a kneeling position. Her hand was not between her legs when I came back. And then another

really hard contraction hit. Then another. And I heard something that sounded like liquid hitting the bed. She kind of straightens up and says, I think my water just broke, something's leaking, something's leaking. I looked and the bed was wet. I said, I think your water just broke. We need to go to the hospital. I started getting ready to transport her to the hospital. I took her hair brush and I put it back in her bag. When I looked in her bag, there was almost nothing in it. None of the items that she said that she had were there. There wasn't a swaddle. I said previously that her bag seemed really small for the amount of things that you would need, I was part of. That was the first time that I had looked

in her bag, and I actually did that with permission, but I felt like I needed to transport this person to the hospital right away. I sort of brushed it from my mind and I didn't think about it. There was a little bit of a adrenaline going in me and I was focused on getting her to the hospital still believing that she was having a stillborn baby. So we get to the hospital and she goes through the same thing of I just really want to be independent. I want to do this part of my own, I want to go up to triage, can you wait downstairs, and I will text you if I've been admitted. We go through that whole dance again. She goes upstairs, and she comes back down, and what seems like record breaking time, she seemed giddy, excited. Like this was a funny joke to her. She said, wow, this is really embarrassing, but apparently my water didn't break. I just peed myself. I remember feeling so frustrated at that

point that a, they still weren't admitting her and the this water breaking was finally we're gonna move on from early labor. Hope that I had for her was just dashed. She had informed me when she got out of the hospital that they wouldn't take her because the labor and delivery floor was just full of patients. They would call her about an induction after shift change. So at like 8 p.m. she was expecting this call. I was like, okay, well, I guess we've got a couple hours to kill. We went back to the Airbnb, but this point, it was like late afternoon and I was so tired. I was quite under-sled. And I think that's part of how she managed to keep me there as an emotional hostage because I was so invested in helping this person.

I had just gone through such an emotional assault at this point. I didn't know that I was in a situation where I was the one who needed the help. She painted the scenario where I thought I was the rescuer, where I was the helper, but I was actually the one who was in need of help. I was the one who was going through something traumatic. Honestly, that fucks me up to think about to this day. So we get back to the Airbnb and she decided that she was gonna make soup.

I thought it was very odd that she still wanted to wear the same clothes after having essentially urinated on herself. But again, I didn't question that much. She started making herself a soup and she was dancing around the kitchen. This whole time she's talking more. She still seemed pretty energetic and she was talking about her friend and her family and her sister and just sort of chitchat.

I said, I'm gonna order some takeout for myself because I was actually really hungry at that point. My suggestion was to find a movie and just sit down and try and relax. Let's just relax, watch a movie, and we'll wait for the phone call. She wanted to watch Grey's Anatomy. She was going on about how much she loved that show. It's evening at this point. I said, why don't we put on a movie? We're getting the TV to work. So I had suggested we try a different plug. I went to move the TV, which I'm a strong person. I can move a TV in a wall unit. There she was helping me move the wall unit and I thought, what pregnant

person ever moves furniture at this point? Even at 20 weeks, it hurts your abdominal muscles to lift like that. I looked up at her and I must have given her one of those weird looks of doubt because boom, there was a contraction. So I get the TV working and she says, well, why don't you just pick a movie? I wanted to pick something that was sort of lighthearted for the moment. So I picked a movie. The movie is about a con woman and it's a comedy. It's called Identity Think. She steals people's identities and it's very funny.

If anybody's ever watched it, you will know exactly how strange it is that Caitlyn agreed to watch this movie of all movies with me while she was actively conning me into believing that she was pregnant and in labor. We're watching this movie with Melissa McCarthy and at one point her character does actually pretend to be pregnant. She tries to con someone into believing she's pregnant. It makes me laugh so much. I don't think Caitlin in that moment was watching this movie with me and thinking about the irony of the situation

that Caitlin was conning me while we were watching a movie about a conwoman. The irony would have been lost on her, I believe. She was laboring on the couch, and I was really tired. She would go back and forth between kneeling on the couch and she would be like, oh, this hurts. Baking those contractions more. And in between, she would watch the movie with me. She would suddenly be like, I'm hungry and get herself a bowl of popcorn.

When she was laboring during the movie, she was standing in front of me and she was rubbing her belly and she was touching her breasts in front of me, describing how breastfeeding felt. She was talking about breastfeeding and how she was still going to have breastmilk. We were talking about what to do with that. She mentioned during that conversation that she had been watching birth videos when I had left the previous night to go home and sleep. I was immediately alarmed because I thought watching birth videos of people who were given birth to live healthy babies would be so awful watching that would just be like traumatizing by itself. What she said next was she was making a joke. She said, oh, but who would watch

birth videos online? Do people with a birth fetish watch those videos? Ha ha ha, people who are pregnant, I guess, and people with a birthing fetish? The only reason that I know what that means is because everyone's in a while in duoliforms, somebody will post about having an odd interaction or a really weird message with somebody describing labor pains or saying that their wife is giving birth right now, the baby is crowning, and they will go into graphic details of this. People will message Dula's these odd things because it's a fantasy of theirs. I felt immediately scared, like anxious. The conversation moved on and she was having more contractions after that, but looking back on it, I do remember in that

moment thinking, there's only two people who know what a birth fetish is, either you're a dola because you've gotten those weird messages I just described to you, or you have a birth fetish. There's very little room in between. In this moment, I have an inkling that something is off, but I don't know that for sure. And how do you present that to somebody? Because what if she really is having a stillbirth? How awful would that be for me to say, excuse me, are you sure you're pregnant? 8 o'clock or 8-ish rolls around. I told her, I said, well, they haven't called you yet. At what point are you going to call the hospital and make contact with them about what you need?

She said, well, let's give them at least half an hour. I said, okay, okay, half an hour. She does call at 8.30 and this was so strange. She gets off the phone and she says, they going to call me back in a few minutes. I was getting so upset with the hospital. I was ready to make that phone call for her. I was like, no, I'm going to call them. I want to talk to the charge nurse and explain to them this full situation. You don't have a place to stay other than Airbnb. They really should be admitting you. Like, I don't understand whether or not admitting you. She's like, no, no, no, no, no no no no no no no no no. I'll make the call. When she told me that she was going to make

the call, she stopped in the middle of one of her contractions and looked up at me. It was like no. I'll do the calling. In a few minutes, she randomly picks up her phone and starts talking. There was no vibration. I didn't even see the phone light up. Looking back on it, she just picked up her phone and started talking. She reports to me that they said that they would induce her in the morning, that she had an appointment. They were going to bring her in that night. I said to her, I need to go and make a stop at home, change my clothes, because I had been at this for two days at this point, and I said, I will be back. This is not how I would behave with the normal client, with the leaving and the coming back. Usually there are sprites,

but I was so tired at this point. I'd just been on my feet all day. I'd been doing all of these things. She kept me so busy. I was even drawing towels at one point because she was in and out of the shower so much. I do a lot of things as a doula, but I've never been so physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted like that before. At a birth, ever. I was feeling so guilty for feeling tired. On the drive home, I was having all of these doubts. This is weird. Why aren't they just admitting her?

I was certainly getting angry at the hospital. And so was my doula partner, because I was also texting her to keep her updated. Even my doula partner had said, I'm gonna call the charge nurse, because this is strange. It was on the drive home that I thought about this Facebook post that I had seen a couple of months ago.

It was such a strange post that it stood out in my mind. It was just like a Facebook post and a duly group about somebody faking pregnancies. I was like, no, that can't be. She can't be faking a pregnancy. Who would do that? So I sort of put it out of my mind, changed my clothes, Caitlin texts me that she just threw up, the contractions were coming harder, so I get back into gear and I drive back.

When I come back, I find that she has washed all of her dishes and cleaned up the kitchen. That's not what I was expecting to find. I was expecting to find somebody who was in labor enough to be throwing up. I said, you threw up. Are you okay? Do you need a change of clothes? I didn't get any on my clothes, she says. Most clients who labor for long enough

when they hit transition, they can start to feel nauseous and they can throw up, it happens. That was my number one concern about what was happening. She just suddenly go into active labor. How long do you think you were gone? 20 to 30 minutes. So she's alleging in 20 to 30 minutes that she had a series of strong contractions through up and cleaned the kitchen. Yep. And when I came back, my words were, why don't you just lay in bed, put your feet up, just try to rest, watch some take talks, the distract yourself. I was in the kitchen and I was reheating take out from earlier because I was hungry.

She was laboring in the other room and I remembered that little doubt that I had on the drive home and that small little memory of, didn't somebody post about somebody having fake pregnancies? And I thought, okay, I know her name, so I'm just gonna type it into Facebook, and I'm gonna search her name just to put away any doubt that this isn't real, because this has to be real. So I type in Caitlin Braun, and I find Shauna's post about a Caitlin Braun faking pregnancies. I had just sort of glanced over it and I was like no way. I was in disbelief. I took a screenshot and I sent it to my doula partner immediately and I was like we have a problem. My heart was pounding. I had been with this person for two days.

She had been faking pregnancy and laborer the entire time. Every single one of my little doubts was right. All of them. I had no idea how she would react to me confronting her. I didn't know how she would react to me knowing. My immediate thought was that this was a delusion of some kind and if I broke that delusion what would happen would she become violent? What did she know about me? Did she have information about me that I didn't know she had? I was so scared. I was so freaking scared. My dual partner, she texted me back with the same concerns and was like, you've got to get out of there. You don't have to say anything, just go, just get out as fast as you can, protect yourself.

So I got up and Caitlin heard me. I made some excuse and said that some things popped up at home and I I have to go home right now. And I ran out of there. I don't think I've ever run out of a place so fast. I got in my car and I'm driving down the road. She couldn't have possibly been chasing me, but it felt like I was running away from monster. I think it was about like 12, 30 at night on the Sunday. She set me in text and was just like, we have a problem. It's got a picture of Caitlin the Sunday, she sent me a text and was just like, we have a problem.

It's got a picture of Caitlin and like she's fake. What is happening? And Audrey was at the house. She was at the Airbnb with Caitlin when she found the post, when she sent it to me. We just had a very quick text conversation. Like, what do I do? Do I say something to her?

Do I just leave? I said, for the first time to a doula, you have to do what feels safe for you. If it was me, I would probably just leave. And that's what Audrey did. She got in her car and she left. Kaelin sent her a text message, like, did I do something wrong that night? We got put into a giant group chat with a bunch of other duals that had been impacted. People started to catch on and leave the situation because honestly that's the safest thing for anybody to do in this situation. In situations like it, you don't know what this other person is going to do, but she would send a message to them like, did I do something wrong?

Are we okay? That was the end of our experience with Kaelin. I never got a text from Kaelin asking anything, so she just kind of assumed and rightfully so that Audrey had let me know what was going on. We just cut communication right at that moment when we knew. At some point, the tears just start fucking coming. I'm just sobbing, driving down the road. And finally, I pulled over and I called my mother who had been watching my kids. She knew that I was attending a stillbirth.

I told her some basic details but what had been going on because I don't share client information. But she knew that me, Adula, was spending the weekend supporting somebody going through a stillbirth, and my kids were at her house. She was panicking, she's like, what happened?

Because she was thinking that I was reacting to, having just witnessed a stillborn baby being born. I quickly explained the situation and I remember sobbing into the phone and I was just like, I don't know why somebody would do that I'm like sobbing and practically screaming into the phone I'm like mom she was undressing in front of me. I don't know why she did that. Why did she do that? Finally my mom gets me calm down enough that I can drive the rest of the way home

I'd let all of that initial sobbing out. I came home and I felt like I needed to take a hundred showers. I just felt so gross. Caitlin had been touching me throughout this whole process. She was so very physically dependent on me on my sport. I was connecting with the fact that I had just been so isolated with somebody who was so unwell and possibly dangerous. Next time on something was wrong.

The detective basically was saying, we don't believe that that's what happened because this has happened before. They were like, we wanna open a case of public mission if against her for wasting public resources and wasting our time basically not telling the truth about you. I was under the impression that she was being investigated

for this, but I had to wait, because she went and got a kid done. So I had to wait because she went and got a kid done, so I had to wait for those results and called my other friend and I was bald, like I was in tears. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe friends. Something was wrong is a broken cycle media production, created and hosted by me, Tiffany Rees. If you'd like to support the show further, you can share episodes with your loved ones,

leave a positive review, or follow something was wrong on Instagram. At Something Was Wrong Podcast. Our theme song was composed by Glad Rags. Check out their album, Wonder Under. Thank you so much. ["Wonder Under"] Hey, Prime members. You can listen to something was wrong early and add free on Amazon music.

Download the app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey. Tom slash survey.