She Went on a PR Tour for Her Sick, Adopted African Child. Was It All a Lie?
Last summer, Sophie Hartman was fixated on her 6-year-old adopted daughter Carmel possibly showing signs of early puberty.
The 31-year-old single mom from Renton, Washington, scheduled an appointment at Seattle Children’s Hospital with a pediatric endocrinologist, a doctor specializing in glands and the hormones they produce, according to a Renton Police probable-cause affidavit.
Hartman, a white, Jesus-loving former missionary, strapped Carmel—a little Black girl born in Zambia—into a wheelchair and rolled her into a medical room, where they met with the endocrinologist. Carmel was “a very handicapped child” who was showing “cyclical symptoms” such as a “discharge” in her underwear, Hartman told the doctor. The symptoms were occurring for four straight days around the same time every month, she added.
Carmel went through a battery of medical exams, including blood work and X-ray imaging. The doctor found “modest clinical findings of early puberty,” but not enough to confirm Carmel was indeed accelerating into womanhood. During a follow-up appointment at Seattle Children’s in October, another endocrinologist ran more tests on Carmel. The doctor found no signs of active puberty in the child, but informed Hartman about two treatments used to suppress pubescence. One involved giving Carmel injections; the other option was more drastic, requiring “surgically lacerating” Carmel’s skin with a scalpel to insert an implant used to suppress early puberty.
The same day, Washington’s Department of Child, Youth, and Families placed Carmel and her older sister, Miah, whom Hartman also adopted, into protective custody. Hartman’s quest to stifle Carmel’s alleged early puberty is just one of several bizarre episodes documented in a probable-cause affidavit that led King County prosecutors to charge Hartman last month with two second-degree felony counts: assault on a child and attempted assault on a child.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/sophie-hartman-went-on-a-pr-tour-for-her-sick-adopted-african-child-but-was-it-all
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I put this here because I didn't know where else to put it. It's a sickening story but it highlights a couple of things---one, the abuse of adopted children, especially those from foreign countries, often by evangelicals who have twisted reasons for adopting them, and two, the prevalence of what used to be called Munchausen by Proxy but now has another name which I forget. I saw a couple of possible examples during the brief time I worked Peds, also one unforgettable case of full-blown "regular" Munchausen which was seriously awful.
= new reply since forum marked as read
...that certainly raised suspicion of Munchhausen/Factitious Disorder (I learned something new today about the current preferred name).
I tried hard, during my years on the job, not to make snap judgments about people, but sometimes, when you're right, you're right.
A few years ago, I saw a family that was new to us on their very first visit. The mom had 3 kids - 2 sons, 1 daughter. The daughter was the youngest, and she was the one I was seeing. While taking the family health history, the mom related a long list of complicated and rare autoimmune disorders that her sons had, and then went on to say that the daughter, who was only 6, had been diagnosed as bipolar and ADHD, among other things.
Then mom seemed to relish talking about all the diagnoses, and was fairly dramatic/flamboyant. Munchhausen-by-proxy came to my mind about 10 minutes into our encounter.
At the conclusion of the visit, I advised the mom that the complexity of her children's problems was definitely outside my expertise as an NP and that it would be better for her to schedule future visits with one of my 9 physician colleagues.
The last time I saw the daughter, the story told by the mom was flat out bizarre. It was a Monday. The mom had spoken to one of my colleagues on Saturday evening, claiming that the child was having vaginal bleeding because one of her brothers has inserted the nozzle of an air hose into his sister's vagina while the family was putting away their boat - "There was stuff coming out of her that looked like brains!" The mom did not follow my colleague's recommendation to take the child to the ER.
I examined the child thoroughly, especially her bottom, and there was NOTHING - no bruise, no abrasion, no laceration, no tenderness. Absolutely nothing. It would not be possible for there to have been the amount of trauma the mom alleged and there be no sign of it a mere 36 hours later. The mom wanted to know if she should be worried about the little girl's virginity. 
There was no way I was going to subject this child to a pediatric GYN exam.
I was pretty damn sure my initial impression in those first 10 minutes was right on the money.
