History Main / BabyBeMine

** PlayedWith in "The Good-Bye Room". The victim was staying in a home for unwed pregnant girls in the 1960s, where she could discreetly have her baby, but she resisted the idea of giving her daughter up for adoption. [[spoiler:She was killed by one of the other girls there, whose son had already been taken; the killer wanted to stop the victim from getting to keep her child out of jealousy, and in the frenzy of the murder, came to believe the victim's daughter was her own son.]]

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': In "[[Recap/CSINYS05E09 The Box]]", a young woman's body is found in a car, and it's quickly discovered that she was pregnant. Turns out she'd agreed to sell her baby to an infertile couple who couldn't adopt legally, but she'd changed her mind. When she told the couple she was keeping the baby, they confronted her and she fell down the stairs, hitting her head and dying. Realizing the baby could still be saved, but than an ambulance would take too long (and they wouldn't be allowed to adopt him anyway), the couple cut out the baby and dumped his mother's body so they could keep him. The episode ends with the baby being given to his grandparents to raise.

** In one episode, Creator/MartinShort plays the Perp Of The Week, a rapist and murderer obsessed with virgins. He has a devoted wife and a little boy, but as the episode progresses, it's discovered that the wife actually can't have children [[spoiler:because her husband refuses to have sex with her; he's obsessed with virgins and she wasn't one. She assaulted a woman who was near the end of her pregnancy and cut the unborn child from her womb in order to give her husband a son. She goes to prison at the end of the episode, with Stabler informing her, to her complete surprise, that the boy is being returned "to his real father, the grieving husband of the woman you butchered."]]

* In Literature/TheBible, Solomon once had two women come to his court with a dilemma of two babies, one dead, one alive. One woman says that her baby was replaced by the mother whose baby perished while another woman claims that she's lying and that her baby died. The king resolved the problem by [[JudgmentOfSolomon ordering the living child be cut in two and shared between the women]], knowing that the real mother would beg for the child to be spared and the fake mother would not. As soon as the women did exactly what Solomon predicted, he ordered the child be returned to the real mother.

Also related to PregnancyMakesYouCrazy and the LawOfInverseFertility, in that the couples that are the most desperate for a baby are the least likely to be able to have one. May cross over with TheKindnapper if the kidnapper believes that they are a better parent for the baby than the actual parents, and ImTakingHerHomeWithMe, which is when someone sees a child and decides that they want to keep them [[note]] Not in a gross or sexual way, that's another trope entirely [[/note]].

* [[spoiler:Weather Report]] in ''[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStoneOcean JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean]]'' was abducted at birth by a woman who switched him with her own stillborn baby. He's actually the fraternal twin brother of the arc's main antagonist.

* In the ''Anime/FairyTail'' fanfic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13085832/1/Obsessed Obsessed]]'', unable to bear children due to an accident and having grown increasingly jealous of other successful female mages who have children, [[BigBad Elena]] endeavors to kidnap children to make her own guild and kill their mothers. By the time she starts targeting the Fairy Tail and Sabertooth guilds, she has already taken a number of children. [[spoiler: When she is later defeated it is revealed that she used a spell to steal an unborn child to impregnate herself and killed the mother. While in captivity she gives birth, and Natsu and Lucy secretly adopt the child and hide her away as a twin of their own newborn child.]]
* Mother Gothel pulls this on eight-year-old Varian in ''Fanfic/LightOfTheMoon''. This isn't done because Gothel wants to be a parent, though (as she has a kid already), but more because she believes she's the only one capable of understanding and controlling Varian's Moonstone powers. All the same, she still takes him from his father and holds him captive for six years. Also, this trope is the reason why Rapunzel's raised by Gothel in the first place.
* One of the reasons Simon is aghast in ''{{Series/Firefly}}'' “[[https://m.fanfiction.net/s/5502176/1/ Freedom to the Free]]” is because two of the babies he helped deliver were taken from their slave mothers to be given to free women who’d bought them. Along with other things he’s forced to do, it makes him feel he violated his oath as a doctor and causes a lot of mental suffering.
* ''Fanfic/EyesOnMe'': It's revealed in Chapter 10 of ''Eternal Flame'' that [[spoiler:this is how Ruby came to be. Her mother Aurora became a surrogate for a Puerto Rican couple (Reuben's brother Diego and sister-in-law Beatriz, to be exact) who couldn't conceive, only to witness firsthand how dysfunctional the intended parents' relationship was and deciding she wouldn't let a child be raised in that environment. Making things more complicated was Aurora and Reuben developing feelings for each other while she was still pregnant. They settled down in New York and then sent Diego and Beatriz a letter telling them that Aurora had had a stillbirth, essentially faking Ruby's death]].

* ''Film/Inside2007'' is built around this as La Femme goes on a bloodthirsty rampage to steal Sarah's unborn child. Her reason? [[spoiler: She blames Sarah for the accident that killed her unborn baby. She succeeds in the 2007 original. The remake ends with Sarah surviving and giving birth while La Femme drowns.]]

* ''Film/{{Run}}'': [[spoiler:After the death of her own baby, Diane kidnapped and poisoned another baby, who she raised as Chloe.]]

* ''Music/EvilliousChronicles'' has this as the twist to "Moonlit Bear", where Eve Moonlit, supposedly under the impression that she was taking apples away from a bear, was in reality stealing a set of infant twins from their mother, Meta Salmofer, whom she then killed. Moonlit later raises the children as her own.
* In ''Literature/LittleFiresEverywhere'', [[spoiler:this is the story behind Pearl's conception. In college, Mia agrees to become a surrogate for a wealthy couple who can't conceive but midway through her pregnancy, she realizes she can't go through with it. She leaves a note claiming she miscarried and leaves, cutting all contact and subsequently raising Pearl herself.]]

* Teased as being the case with Rachel in '' Literature/TheGirlOnTheTrain''. Her husband, Tom, cheated on her and left her after their numerous fertility treatments failed, and ended up having a child with his mistress Anna. Rachel obsessively stalks them, fantasizes about their life, and at one point, "kidnaps" Tom and Anna's baby (by carrying her outside and refusing to give her back). However, Rachel never intended to hurt the baby, though she did behave creepily about it. [[spoiler: She actually ends up helping to save Anna and the baby from the murderous Tom at the end.]]

-->“It’s true that genetically we are nephew and aunt. But psychologically, [[spoiler:Tatsuya]], you are my son. (...) It was my sister in whose womb you grew, but it was I who created your magic to be as it is. As a magician, you are very much my son. (...) And my sister knew this. She knew that somehow I, her younger sister, had seized control of her womb. She [[MindRape stole from me my very self]], and I stole from her, her son."

** Played with in "The Good-Bye Room". The victim was staying in a home for unwed pregnant girls in the 1960s, where she could discreetly have her baby, but she resisted the idea of giving her daughter up for adoption. [[spoiler:She was killed by one of the other girls there, whose son had already been taken; the killer wanted to stop the victim from getting to keep her child out of jealousy, and in the frenzy of the murder, came to believe the victim's daughter was her own son.]]

** Suspected in "The Good Earth." The profile indicates that the unsub is a woman who's abducting men to act as breeding partners in an effort to conceive the perfect child, so when a heavily-pregnant woman is abducted, they believe she's reached her deadline to produce a child. The fact that mother and child are returned (relatively) unharmed after a crude C-section makes them reevaluate everything. [[spoiler:Turns out she was after the ''placenta,'' not the baby, and she was turning the men into fertilizer, not sleeping with them.]]

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': In "[[Recap/CSINYS05E09 The Box]]," a young woman's body is found in a car, and it's quickly discovered that she was pregnant. Turns out she'd agreed to sell her baby to an infertile couple who couldn't adopt legally, but she'd changed her mind. When she told the couple she was keeping the baby, they confronted her and she fell down the stairs, hitting her head and dying. Realizing the baby could still be saved, but than an ambulance would take too long (and they wouldn't be allowed to adopt him anyway), the couple cut out the baby and dumped his mother's body so they could keep him. The episode ends with the baby being given to his grandparents to raise.

* "Don't Go Near the Indians", a top-5 country and top-20 pop hit for Rex Allen in 1962, about a man who reveals to his son, who is full-blooded Native American, that he kidnapped him from a tribe when he was a baby, this in retaliation for one of the tribesmen killing his biological son. This comes at the end of the song, after the man, who had been admonished with the titular advice, had fallen in love with a maiden from the same tribe and he was forced to reveal the truth. [[spoiler: The reason for the father's heartbreaking revelation: because the young couple were biological brother and sister.]]

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* ''Film/RaisingArizona'' is about an ex-con whose wife is infertile but desperate for a child. Because of the husband's criminal past, they can't adopt, so they decide to kidnap a baby from local rich guy Nathan Arizona, whose wife just had quintuplets. HilarityEnsues.

* ''Series/911:LoneStar'': In Season 3, former nanny Danica Hendry kidnaps her old charge Katie Conrad to raise as her own daughter, even manipulating Katie into setting her house on fire, the goal presumably being to kill the parents. Thankfully, Danica is apprehended and Katie returned to her parents.

This can be because of TheBabyTrap, DarwinistDesire, or MandatoryMotherhood. It can involve a BreedingSlave or a StalkerWithATestTube. The common FreudianExcuse for this is a miscarriage or a TragicStillbirth. The woman's fixation on having a child often epitomizes BabiesMakeEverythingBetter.

* On ''Series/{{Glee}}'', Terri Schuester thinks having a baby will strengthen her marriage. She goes as far as faking sonograms, wearing a false belly, and refusing to let her husband touch her in order to pull off her fake pregnancy. Her plan was to adopt the child of one of Will's pregnant students immediately after birth and pass it off as her own.

* There's a ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' episode where a girl's body is found in a car, and it's quickly found that she was pregnant. Turns out she'd agreed to sell her baby to an infertile couple who couldn't adopt legally but changed her mind. When she told the couple she was keeping the baby, they confronted her and she fell, hitting her head. She could have been saved, but instead of calling an ambulance, the couple cut the baby out of her and dumped the body. The episode ends with the baby being given to his grandparents to raise.

* An older version in the "Sam's Missing" episode of ''Series/DifferentStrokes'', when Sam is kidnapped by a grieving father desperate to replace the son who was killed in an accident and repair his family. His wife takes to him instantly, even slipping up and calling him "Timmy", her dead son's name.