Distrust among friends is never a good thing, but what if you suspected one of your closest friends of plotting an unspeakable crime? And worse, what if the crime was against you? That's exactly where one woman found herself recently, when she began to suspect her friend might be thinking about stealing her baby. (Yep, you read that right.)
The anonymous mother recently shared her jaw-dropping story on Reddit, where she described what might be the creepiest tale ever.
It begins innocently enough in April of 2018, when she met a woman identified only as "J" through mutual friends. It wasn't long before she learned that J had a sad backstory — not only had she survived lung cancer, but she also suffered a stillbirth about two years prior.
By October 2018, the Reddit poster was overjoyed to learn she was pregnant, and turned to her friend to share the news.
"She was the first person in our friend group that I told about my pregnancy," the woman recalled.
Sadly, J had some news of her own that same month.
She had been pregnant again but miscarried. And, even worse, she had learned that a tumor was growing in her uterus.Â
Just two months later, the poster went to Jâs house for brunch, which is when things started to get slightly … weird.Â
"J kept saying she KNEW I was having a girl (for context — her stillborn was a girl) and that she was already buying my baby dresses and pink girly stuff, and bought me a pink maternity dress for a photoshoot," the poster shared, adding that J was doing all of this without even telling her.
"She also said when she was buying some pregnancy items, the cashier asked when she was due and she went along with it and said my due date," the woman recalled.
As if that wasn't awkward enough, things soon started getting even weirder.
"She also said sheâd be in the delivery room with me, that she was glad the baby might look like her so she can pretend itâs hers when she babysits, and was referring to the baby as 'my baby,'" the poster continued. "I was insanely uncomfortable, but didnât say anything to her."
Yikes.
Also weird? The moment J put her on the spot by saying, "Iâm the babyâs godmother right?"
Oh, and how about when she started calling the poster's fiancé HER BABY DADDY?!
WOAH, boy.
"If she and I were close I could understand the assumption, but this girl didnât even know my last name," the poster wrote.
The final straw came a few months later, after the two women headed home from a night with friends.
"We ended up leaving at the same time and had a similar route home, so we saw each other on the road," the poster recalled. "I texted the group chat that I got home safe and J responded saying I drove too fast! I figured she just meant that I got home quicker than her so I replied that I was going the speed limit, and I saw her pass me!"
"You werenât paying attention at the light though," J allegedly told her, to which the mom-to-be responded with, "Mind ya business haha.â
The response she got back? âNah, thatâs our baby in there,â J told her.
By this point, the Reddit poster wasn't just creeped out — she was mad.Â
"I exploded," she admitted. "I replied telling her that first of all it is MY baby, and second how dare you criticize my every move and insinuate that Iâm putting my child in danger???"
J tried to play it off as a joke, but the mom-to-be was not buying that.
The incident made the Reddit poster think back on a lot of their friendship so far -- and the many "awkward" exchanges.
It didn't take her long to make the executive decision to text her and end their friendship, over fears that once her baby was born, the friend might start acting even bizarrely — or worse, attempt to kidnap her.
"I was as empathetic to her situation as I could be, offering condolences for her lost daughter and urging her to find a good therapist to help her with her grief and other issues," she recalled. "I truly meant it to be heartfelt because I was sure her stillbirth was a huge factor in why she was acting this way. I certainly didnât mean it as an insult, because I think everyone would benefit from therapy."
It's been nearly a year since she abruptly cut J off, and said there hasn't been any contact made since. But now that her anger has had some time to simmer, she's wondering if maybe she went too far.
The people of Reddit responded quickly -- and were largely behind the mom's decision.
One person said that although everything J experienced was certainly terrible, "you donât owe it to anyone to share your baby."
"Your friend's trauma and pain are understandable, but her behavior was strange and terrifying," another added.
Another person thought she dodged a major bullet by cutting off the friend and that she shouldn't feel guilty in the least. "This sounds like the beginning of a horror movie, yikes!!"
In fact, a lot of people pointed out that this story actually sounded kind of familiar.
Even though the thought that a friend might abduct your baby might sound way out of left field, the truth is, it's happened before.Â
In December, 33-year-old Heidi Broussard and her infant daughter Margo mysteriously vanished in broad daylight. Police searched for the Texas mother for days before an investigation led them to the doorstep of her best friend, Magen Fieramusca. There, right inside Fieramusca's home, authorities found an infant who was proven to be Margo. And in her backyard? Broussard's dead body was found stuffed into the trunk of her car.
Thankfully, this story certainly didn't end in the same tragic way, and Redditors applauded the mom for playing it safe just in case.
"Ahh … I might have just watched too much trash TV over the years but this would have made me legit scared for my safety," wrote one person. "At first I thought maybe she's just trying to find some joy in someone else's happiness, but I kept reading and holy h–l that's a frightening pathology."
According to a later comment in the thread, the mom admitted that she did her best "to come across as loving instead of attacking," and that in the end, that's all she could do.Â
Here's hoping "J" becomes just a weird, distant memory and doesn't show up again.
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
