Adopting a baby comes with all sorts of uncertainties, but Matt and Laura Trayte could have never expected to find out their soon-to-be-adopted daughter never existed at all.

The California couple had expressed interest in adopting a newborn and created a website and Facebook page called “A Sibling For Hudson.” That’s when they were contacted by a 34-year-old woman named Elizabeth Jones in 2018. She told the Traytes that she was pregnant and looking for parents to adopt her unborn baby girl.

When the couple met Jones, who lived all the way in Virginia, their bond was immediate. They spent time together, exchanged frequent messages, and even got matching shirts. The soon-to-be parents called Jones their “hero.”

Like any expectant parents, the Trayte’s prepared their home for their future daughter and were thrilled to travel to Virginia around Jones’ due date to welcome their baby girl.

As the couple was traveling, they started getting panicked calls and texts from Jones who said she was in labor and headed to the hospital after flagging down an ambulance from the side of the road.

One message said:

“We are ditching the car we are both in the ambulance. Baby is ready to come out. I’m fully dilated and her head is right there. I gotta push”

The next thing they knew, Jones has messaged them to say she had given birth in the vehicle without any medication.

“Oh my god we have a baby omg,” she texted.

When they finally arrived at the hospital, they were told that Jones was indeed checked in, but not because she gave birth. They were told she was suffering from pelvic and back pain.

A nurse took Laura Trayte to Jones and pulled back the curtain to reveal a completely calm and fully-clothed woman who had not just given birth.

“There was no baby,” Laura said. “There was never a baby.”

They found out she had never even been pregnant.

Mrs. Trayte told Inside Edition about her devastation:

“There are no words to describe just the shock, the trauma, and pain,” she said through tears.

No one knows what Jones was thinking, although the couple she deceived suspects it was all for the attention.

It’s such a bizarre thing to do that there are no laws on the books in Virginia prohibiting anyone from faking a pregnancy. Jones didn’t even consider what she did to be a crime since no money had been exchanged.

“People get emotionally hurt every day,” she told the Southern California News Group in December. “How is that a crime?”

While prosecutors were limited in what they could charge her with, they managed to come up with nine counts of felony larceny for allegedly obtaining gifts from the couple under false pretenses.

According to The Washington Post:

“Prosecutors in Scott County, Va., accused her of eating out at restaurants on the Traytes’ dime; accepting numerous presents from the couple; and causing them to pay for an expensive professional photoshoot for the announcement of the nonexistent baby’s birth.”

In retrospect, there were red flags.

When Mrs. Trayte flew out for a doctor’s appointment, Jones tricked her into going out to the car to get a water bottle only to tell her she had finished the appointment by the time she got back. She also told the couple the baby was coming early in November. The couple flew to Virginia and stood by for days as she had contractions that they now know she faked and her due date changed to January.

The night before she told them she was on her way to the hospital, she sent them photos of blood from her supposed “birth.”

Jones later apologized to the couple, but told some outlets that she miscarried and others that she was never pregnant. She even said the couple should have caught on earlier.

Her case went to trial but ended suddenly when Jones changed her plea to guilty during the jury selection procedure in June.

For eight felony counts, she’ll be serving two years in state prison.

Scroll down below to see an interview with the Traytes about the bizarre incident.

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Source: The Washington Post, Inside Edition via YouTube, Southern California News Group, Orange County Register