How fake pregnancy spiralled into horror newborn kidnap plot after desperate mum-to-be suffers 3 traumatic miscarriages

ON THEIR wedding day, they danced joyously to “their special song”, Unchained Melody, as family and friends cheered them on. Nine years later, Eleonor Alejandra Mendoza and her husband Arturo, unexpectedly heard it played again, but his time while they were in the back of a police car after having been arrested for the kidnapping of a baby. Eleonor Alejandra Mendoza (known as Ale) concocted a plan to fake her pregnancy Credit: Netflix Ana Celeste Montalvo as Ale in documentary A Child of My Own Credit: ©2026 Netflix, inc The extraordinary story of how a young Mexican woman felt such pressure to give birth in a country where family is everything, that she concocted an elaborate plan to fake her pregnancy, is told in the Netflix documentary A Child of My Own. What starts as an elaborate lie turned into a complex charade that threatened to upend her life and relationship, and ultimately unleashed a media scandal that shook the country. Sign up for The Sun newsletter Thank you! “I was drawn into problems that got bigger and bigger,” says Ale. “And I started making decisions and taking actions which got more complicated, until there was no way out. No turning back.” Filmmaker Maite Alberdi (pictured above with Ale) delves into the kidnapping story Credit: Netflix Ale was found guilty of kidnapping and given a 13-year prison sentence. Credit: Netflix The documentary is told in an imaginative way by Oscar-nominated director, Maite Alberdi, in which the first half plays out like a drama with actors in the roles of the principal characters in an extended flashback, while the second half features interviews with Alejandra and Arturo, explaining their actions first-hand. The pair married in July 2000 when Eleonor, known as Ale, was just 17. “I was pregnant and that’s part of the reason we got married then but I also loved Arturo,” she says. “I always dreamed of being a mum and I was full of hope. Most read in The Sun “I have a large family. All my cousins are mums. I felt like it was fulfilling my dream by having a family of my own. “When I got married, I felt pressured to please Arturo’s family. I didn’t feel accepted by his mum and that made me want to do everything I could to win her over.” Ale was devasted when she miscarried while living with her in-laws and felt the “blame” lying heavily on her shoulders. “I was crying in my bedroom, not wanting to see anyone but they came up to my room. Ale’s husband Arturoa (above, played by Armando Espitia) was acquitted Credit: ©2025 Netflix, Inc. The newborn’s parents dispute Ale’s (depicted by Ana Celeste Montalvo) claims they had a deal Credit: ©2025 Netflix, Inc. “One of Arturo’s aunts said, ‘Why are you crying? We all go through this.’ Then his mum said, ‘You should have been more careful. You can’t behave like that.’” While family continued to talk about them having kids soon, Ale felt the pressure increasing. “Soon after that first miscarriage, I was pregnant again. “Arturo would tell me, ‘You have to be careful. Don’t do this, don’t do that.’ “Then I had a second miscarriage. After a few years we started to worry when I didn’t get pregnant.” Following fertility treatment, she fell pregnant again in 2009, but while working at The General Hospital in Mexico City as an administrative assistant, she had another miscarriage. It was then, she says, that she met a young woman called Mayra Navarro Vega who was there because she wanted to have an abortion. “Mayra told me she already had a baby girl from a different father and that her mum would kick her out of the home if she had another. “She also said the father wasn’t accepting any responsibility, because he didn’t believe the baby wasn’t his. “Then she said, ‘I’d rather give it away than throw it away.’ I asked her if she was serious, and she said, ‘Yes.’” The pair then agreed an audacious deal to secretly give the baby to Ale. “When I got home, I decided I wouldn’t tell anyone that I had lost the baby, especially not Arturo. I didn’t want anyone saying it was my fault, again.” Instead, she began eating lots of calorific food to put on “pregnancy weight” month by month, going from 119 pounds to 143, 176, all the way to 216. “My tummy really looked like I was pregnant and I felt so special because people close to you start treating you so lovingly and come up and touch your belly so sweetly.” Mayra told her that the due date was the week of 16 June, and that the doctors thought it was a girl. While working in the hospital, Ale looked at the ultrasound Mayra had of her baby and brought a picture of it home to show the family. Arturo was happy, even though he wanted a baby boy. When his mum told Ale that she didn’t look like she was carrying a girl, Ale replied that doctors should know better than old wives’ tales of being able to tell the sex from the shape of a woman’s belly. On a shopping trip with Arturo to buy maternity clothes, she mentioned a baby that her friend was adopting and became upset when Arturo said that he could never adopt because it’s not the same as flesh and blood. Ale tried to put on a happy face at a baby shower for family and friends but she was feeling the strain of her lie. “It was awful, seeing everybody happy, my parents, my family, my grandma. I wanted someone to burst that balloon of lies. To spill everything out.” It was when she was unable to stop Arturo from accompanying her to a doctor for a medical in order to get her maternity leave, that she thought the truth would be revealed. As Arturo sat in the room, she told the doctor that she was 38 weeks gone. Then came the moment she was dreading, as he listened to the baby’s heartbeat but couldn’t hear one. Thinking it was the fault of the device he was using, the doctor went and got an old-fashioned type, and this time, to her disbelief, he said he could hear the baby. “The doctor gave me my 90 days of maternity leave. I was thinking, ‘Am I pregnant? I lost it, didn’t I? Did I get pregnant again?’ Too much was messed up in my head.” When Mayra gave birth, Ale pretended to the hospital that she was her neighbour and wanted to see her. In the ward, Mayra had a fever but pointed to the baby and said the deal was still in place. “I was holding the baby, when around two or three in the afternoon, a man arrived. He turned out to the be the baby’s father and he took the baby from me and held her.” Ale walked out and returned later, after visiting hours ended, and says that Mayra was getting dressed to leave. “I said, ‘You can’t leave me here with her. We have to do this right,’ but Mayra replied, “I did my part. Take the baby.” Ale put the tiny four and a half pounds tot in a shopping bag and walked out of the hospital. This was later found to have been captured on CCTV camera, which is shown in the documentary. Outside, she was startled by her husband arriving, who asked her what she was doing. Ale got in the car, with the baby still in the bag, and confessed to what she had done. Stunned, he angrily ordered her out of the car, telling her to give the baby back. But he eventually relented and she got back in and they booked into a hotel for the night to talk things over. Here, Arturo asked her what the plan was going to be. She explained, “Mayra was going to be discharged tomorrow morning. I was going to pretend to be her relative to expediate things. “By the time you got to the hospital, I’d have the baby, and the paperwork.” Still angry and shouting, he eventually calmed down enough to hold the baby, telling her, “You’ll be happy with us.” The three of them fell asleep on the bed, until they were awoken by the police pounding on the door. They took the baby away and arrested the pair for kidnap, while Ale screamed that the baby had been given to her. “We were in the police car when on the radio they started playing Unchained Melody, the song we danced to at our wedding,” she recalls. “It was our special song and, at that moment, I thought, it was a sign. We love each other. We’ll be okay.” That was Ale’s story and she has stuck by it ever since. However, Mayra and the baby’s father firmly dispute this and say that their baby, Katya, was simply kidnapped. A court found Ale guilty of kidnapping and she was given a 13-year prison sentence. Arturo was locked up for two and a half years until the end of the trial when he was acquitted. “At the time I felt that Ale had done something unforgivable and that she was evil and I didn’t want to see her again,” says Arturo. “But being in jail gives you a lot of time to think things over. I reflected on where I might have failed as a partner. “When I said, ‘I don’t want to adopt, I want a child of my flesh and blood,’ maybe I contributed to closing myself off in that way. “I admit I did push her a bit, because I wanted to be a dad and I wanted to have a son.” Once released, he started writing to his wife in prison saying that he forgave her and that he loved her with all his heart. In the documentary, Mayra gives her side of the story. “There was never a deal,” she says. “I didn’t meet her until Katya was born. I only went to the hospital to give birth. “I had my pregnancy check-ups in another health facility, so I never got to see Ale any earlier.” Documents confirmed this. Mayra had not been at the hospital until a few weeks before she gave birth. “When I was in the hospital, Ale wandered over and showed me her hospital ID badge and said she was doing a survey and she asked me questions like, Was this my first baby? Was she from the same marriage? How was my relationship with her dad? “That’s where she got all the information.” Ale denies this but a folder with surveys inside was found beside her jumper and ID badge at the hospital. There is also footage taken by Katya’s father on his phone, of him tenderly holding his new-born daughter in hospital and talking sweetly to her. “I had a fever of almost 104F,” says Mayra. “I couldn’t be discharged because I had an infection. I was asked for urine samples so I left the room and when I returned, my baby was gone. “My first thought was that maybe a nurse had taken her for a bath or to feed her. “I never thought she had been stolen.” The documentary shows Ale being released from prison, having served her sentence, and being reunited with Arturo, who tells her, “It’s over, my love.” But in a further twist, his yearning to have a son, caused them to part – temporarily. “Soon after leaving prison, Arturo told me he still wanted to be a dad,” explains Ale. “I replied that he had the right to pursue his happiness but that I wasn’t willing to undergo any treatment, and with me, he wasn’t going to be a dad. “We were separated for a while, we gave each other space, and he had a short relationship with another woman and a son was born. “After that, Arturo came back looking for me. “We talked and he told me what had happened. “He said that he missed me, that he loved me, and that he wanted me in his life. “He asked me to try again and I decided to do so. “It makes me happy to see him fulfilled as a father. “But even more, it makes me happy that he sees me in his life as the other parent figure of his child.” Comment now