Maundy Thursday. The day of betrayal. On that night, two thousand years ago, Jesus was betrayed by one His chosen disciples, even as He was demonstrating absolute obedience to the Father.

Maundy Thursday 2011 was the day of our betrayal as well. Or at least of its discovery.

I awoke that morning with the acute realization that the twins were coming any day. Though their due date was May 20th, they were expected before the end of April. After all, the birth mother was 44 years old and carrying twins. The time had come for us to bring babies home!

Maundy Thursday afternoon, I received a call, but not the one I was hoping for. A friend of a friend of a friend (who wishes to remain anonymous) wanted Ken and I to know that our birth mother had faked a pregnancy the year before, and that if we were involved with her, we needed to be very careful.

Faked a pregnancy? Surely not. She was huge! She had thin extremities, and a protuberant abdomen that we had watched grow over months.

We had been asking our attorney for proof of pregnancy from the birth mother since we started paying her living expenses, but our attorney’s response had always been, “Well, it is hard to trust . . . ” while still telling us that we were required to pay the birth mother’s living expenses.

I began to backtrack.

The Pregnancy Care Center. The birth mother had been seen there initially for services before we even met her. No, they had not done a pregnancy test.

Agape. The adoption agency we were paying to do birth mother counseling. No, they had never confirmed she was pregnant.

Friends who were going with her to appointments. Every time they were available to go to a OB appointment, the birth mother would have a reason to cancel. When they weren’t available to go, she would go by herself.

Vanderbilt Medical Center. She had been receiving prenatal care there because she was classified as high risk. No such patient existed in their medical record system.

The more I searched for information and asked questions, the more I realized how little we actually knew. What I did find revealed that everything she had told us was likely not true.  She did not live at the place we had been paying rent. Her home had not been flooded in May 2010. Her husband had not left her for Ghana. We weren’t even sure of her real name.

Finally, a face-to-face confrontation: We didn’t believe her story. Either take a pregnancy test to prove pregnancy right then, or it was over. No more money. No more support, from us or anyone else.

The “birth mother” walked out the door and has not been seen since.

Betrayal.