Sigh. Here we go again.
This blogger lost a baby to a cord accident and then gave birth to Chloe in April. On Monday, her husband was badly hurt in a car accident and Chloe was critically injured.
Baby Chloe died on Tuesday.
Hundreds of comments flooded in and posts sprang up on blogs expressing shock, anger and condolences to the young mother who had been through so much.
Except the whole mess is a lie. I emailed the blog author and she replied with an email address that included “J*** and Courtney” and a last name (I’m redacting this to give the family some privacy, thanks for the good point, Erin). Some Googling brought up a Facebook page, and there really is a baby named Chloe, born on the same day as poor doomed Chloe from the Rainbow blog.
None of the Facebook friends of Facebook Chloe’s mom or dad had mentioned an accident and their families hadn’t said a peep about it. There were no google results for an accident in their hometown or anywhere near it.
After emailing back and forth with “Courtney,” the author of the blog, she finally admitted she had stolen the identities of this family and created a tale about a dead baby as an “escape from life.”
The Other Side of the Rainbow has now been deleted. You can find the entire blog in screen shots here.
The blog had only existed for a little over a month but it had built up quite the following in support communities for people who have had stillbirths or were trying to conceive. Tonight there were hundreds of comments of sympathy from people who talked about their own dead children and how they coped with their incredible losses. More tears shed over a baby who is perfectly fine in real life.
(Thanks as always to the Super Sleuths who helped with the Emily mess, the Puryear drama and now this thankfully not dead baby blog)
Thank you for the time and energy you put into this.
WOW! I will never believe ANYONE without checking the news.
I have read this blog and cried lots of tears! I have no words to describe how I feel right now! My goodness x
Thank you for straightening this out! It makes me so angry that someone would pray upon people’s emotions and sympathies the way that she did. Sad. I hope she gets herself some help.
I wondered. Couldn’t fine any info about the accident. Hope she gets some help. People were really distraught for her.
Hope she gets the help she needs…. This makes my stomach turn 🙁
As someone who has actually lived through the loss of a child, multiple miscarriages, and my spouse’s cancer dx, the fact that anyone would want this life is sick to me.
I have no words. How can we even believe bloggers now when people lie about kids dying. That’s just nuts.
I read through that blog yesterday, and I think that in one of the posts she said something like “If you know me in real life, don’t say anything on Facebook.” That solidified the whole thing as fake for me.
Thank you, Taryn; excellent work.
~A
As a parent who lost a baby in April this year I felt the tears coming when I first saw this, now I am in shock. I know people say 70% of what is on the internet is made up, but even so, WTF!!!!
It’s starting to look like more than 70.
So sorry for your loss.
Weird. When I want to escape, I drink.
wow, thank you so much for uncovering the truth. i am relieved that story didn ‘t really happen. it was just too heartbreaking. i hope the blog author gets help, too. her real life would probably make a heartbreaking blog of its own.
This is incredibly disappointing. This woman is SICK.
I thought it was odd all with all the constant updates. I mean if my child was in the hospital dying the last thing I would be doing is updating my blog about it. Thanks for finding out the real truth!
This. I don’t get it. When my grandmother is in hospital we hardly have time to eat let alone go online.
Yes, love the “The 2 most important people in my life have been in a horrible, possibly fatal accident, but I just wanted to make a quick post on Facebook before I go!”
Thanks for getting to the bottom of this. My son was stillborn this last Feb, and I was one of the people who went over to show some love to this woman. I feel a bit betrayed because she hijacked language and experiences that are terrible for a whole community of bloggers. I’m curious why anyone would want to ESCAPE into a reality like mine. I also wonder if she realizes how many people who have had real losses she hurt in the process.
These blogs may be pretty engaging if they were labeled as fiction, I mean you could get a following, maybe?
And “I get ya” I’m glad I could inspire your name! :P. Also what state is this new hoaxer from?
I don’t think people would be as interested if they knew it was fiction. If you are going through something difficult yourself, would you want to read the made-up words of someone who hasn’t actually gone through it? I think there is also something in the saying “the truth is stranger than fiction.” People are likely to believe crazy things if they are told they are true, but will scoff at them if a writer tries to portray them in a story. For example, when I read the history of J.S. – all those women who had his babies and then dumped them on him, one after another – it seemed over the top to me. You couldn’t create a fictional character like that who could stand up to the skepticism of your readers. But, if you’re meeting J.S. in the context of reality? You begin to think this is so crazy it must be true.
I read it and I was very upset… took us 4 years and IVF to get our little girl, it was really upsetting reading that..
HS
I even believed it after the first replies went up saying it was a hoax. I felt badly for her that they were accusing her of that when she had just lost a child! Argh, I’m such a sucker.
this is so sad, I feel for people who want to escape their reality by inventing a world where a baby dies. How much must you be lacking when the worst possible scenario becomes a cry for attention. I hope they find help before they hurt anyone else