How did folks find out she faked the kid dying? Or faked having a daughter?
Sulla from Parenting started digging. This was her post explaining her reasoning:
"I don't think I would have cared as much if not for the fact that she was allowing grieving parents to expend emotional energy on her, which just seemed like the a ridiculously cruel thing to do to people who've actually been through the agony of losing a child. This wasn't AmyLovesRian pretending to be a bride or pregnant. This was someone reaching out to grieving parents and begging for their sympathy under false pretenses. She had people praying for her and sending her Bibles. One woman said her blog was the first thing she read every morning. It was sick.
And she was literally stalking all these blogs and message boards, and had joined the yahoo group for "Angel Moms." These women had really begun to care about her, and when she was making these faux suicidal sounding gestures, people were worried about her. So I felt like I had to stop her. It was just morally reprehensible to me. Not illegal. But just something I personally as a mom couldn't let continue in good conscience. Others might have made a different choice, but that's what I felt was right. Believe me, I spent a lot of time talking this out with various people, including my shrink friend, and trying to figure out the smartest way to approach her and whether or not to share this on all the forums she was coming to. (And there were like 10 zillion of those.)
In the end, I only hope this woman, who clearly needs some help and support, gets what she's looking for in a more appropriate way."
She was also posting on the Special Needs board and the After Loss/Grief board (IIRC those were all VERY small and brand new communities at the time) and linking her blog (with paypal donation button) every chance she got. It became personal for several people when she started going out of her way to harass (not sure if that's the right word, but I can't think of another) several of the moms who had just recently lost real children. Like, she was thriving on their grief to drum up hits to her own blog and her own story.
She also had posted the same con on CafeMom and had a donation site set up there but it's unclear if that was ever found out/removedor how much money she made from them.
Turns out she was an old LA Knottie and had been friends with several of them for quite awhile and they confirmed she didn't ever have a daughter, especially not one who had died at 6 from a brain tumor.
ETA: karinothing I had forgotten about another important piece of timing. There was a poster whose SN was Doublewhammy who lost twin girls a day apart when they were 5-6 mos old, around January-February 2009, and TB folks started a fundraiser for DW's family. TeachKinder showed up and started commenting on TB and commenting on DW's posts/blog a ton within weeks of their deaths like she was going to be DW's BFF or something. It was weird enough that DW actually posted about it as its own blog post.
Also I think it's weird that she's throwing gluten all over her home kitchen. My friend and her husband have separate toaster ovens because she has celiac.
None of the bars use wheat flour. Some use ingredients that are not strictly gluten free though.
The home business is not really the point here, and I don't see any evidence that it's not legit.
I hate watching YouTube videos, but your comment made me curious so I watched.
That IS a lot of personal info and just a weird video to post online! That's something that you keep for yourself to show your kid when he's older or send to the grandparents, not post publicly for everyone to see. =/
I am almost positive that she is still married. I found her supposed XH on her FB page and searched the Tucson divorce records on the official page. Nothing comes up for either of them. There are photos of them together in the house that she posts from still today, so they clearly lived there together.
On another note, I always thought her house looked so dirty and gross in the pictures she posted. I could never eat anything baked there.
She did send like 8 boxes of diapers to the drive....
I'm legit scared for her kid. Her Husbands name and workplace was said in her public video. Would it be crazy to contact him and let him know what's going on?? It looks like they are still very much together.
I don't have anything else to contribute except that her advice about drinking at least 150 oz of water per day always stuck in my craw. Even La Leche League says to just drink to sate your thirst.
Signed, chump who bought $50 oatmeal cookies.
The 150 ounces a day was insane.
Oh yeah, it's all my fault / the fault of new moms that they can't produce enough because they don't want to go pee every 20 minutes. I felt really sad when that advice was given.
I've been living by the 150 oz rule. It's... A lot. And I told H about it. So in his attempts to be supportive of BF, he's practically been water boarding me.
A mistake is misspelling something or adding too much sugar to your "magical" cookies. Making up a kid who passed away is not a "mistake," it is a sign of a sick mind.
At this point I just feel really bad for her little boy. This kind of crazy is not good for child development.
I hope she gets some serious help for the sake of her kid.
I will be honest, I felt bad for her son when she refused to tough it out for daycare. It was all about her issues and not what he needed long term. I have no patience for that shit.