Katie Nelson, a 27-year-old from Southern Ontario, was settling in to watch television last month when she was confronted by a story that felt unnervingly familiar. The episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit appeared to be a fictionalised version of her own traumatic ordeal, where she was duped by a serial con artist faking a pregnancy.
From Doula Support to National Television
Nelson, who was working as a pregnancy doula at the time, fell victim to Kaitlyn Braun, a woman who defrauded over 50 doulas by pretending to be pregnant and claiming her baby was conceived through rape. Nearly three years after her encounter, Nelson is convinced her experience directly inspired the SVU episode titled 'Feed the Craving', which aired on October 23.
Despite the standard disclaimer that precedes every Law & Order episode stating the story is fictional, Nelson described the viewing experience as 'so surreal'. She told the Daily Mail, 'I kind of forgot that actually happened to me.' The episode, starring Mariska Hargitay, featured a plot about a woman who faked a pregnancy and manipulated doulas, mirroring Nelson's reality with only minor detail changes.
The Elaborate Doula Scam Unravels
Braun initially contacted Nelson via social media in November 2022. At the time, Nelson was transitioning to a career as a wedding photographer but decided to assist Braun virtually, which was standard practice due to lingering COVID-19 restrictions.
'There were a couple of days of supporting her through early labour and going back and forth on needing support going through contractions and kind of processing the emotions of anticipating having a stillbirth,' Nelson recalled. The support stretched to almost ten days as Braun reported numerous medical complications postpartum.
Red flags began to appear when Nelson noticed Braun was sending variations of the same photo to different doulas. Her suspicions grew when Braun experienced 'every complication you could possibly experience'. A reverse image search confirmed her fears, revealing a photo of a stillborn baby had been taken from Google Images.
Braun's pattern involved customising her story for each doula, exploiting their empathy. 'Unfortunately, now we know that that's kind of what she does with each doula, is really customise the story to pull on your heartstrings as much as possible,' Nelson explained.
Justice Served and an Unexpected Form of Healing
Kaitlyn Braun's criminal activities finally caught up with her. In December 2023, she pleaded guilty to 21 charges, including fraud and false pretenses, for seeking help from doulas under false pretences between June 2022 and February 2023.
She was initially sentenced in February 2024 to two years of house arrest and three years of probation. However, she broke her house arrest conditions just two months later in April 2024 by contacting two more support workers while falsely claiming to be pregnant. This led to a new sentence in June 2025 of three years in prison, with the remainder of her house arrest to be served behind bars, bringing her total incarceration time to three years and eight months.
For Nelson, watching the SVU episode was a mix of anxiety and relief. She was pleasantly surprised by the overall representation of doulas and found a measure of healing in hearing Hargitay's character, Olivia Benson, say the things she wished the police had said to her. 'It was very shocking to see that our story made it to a platform like SVU,' she said, marking a strange but significant epilogue to a deeply personal fraud.
