‘The Pregnancy Project’ is due this month

A Toppenish girl who faked a pregnancy for a senior class project, and social experiment, is due again. She’s expecting a Lifetime TV movie about her story to arrive January 28.

Gaby Rodriguez shocked her friends, teachers and family when she said she was pregnant at the age of 17. She surprised them again when she revealed that she had been faking the pregnancy to make a point about how teen moms are judged and discriminated against.

Only a handful of people knew what Rodriguez, a straight-A student, was up to. Her senior project had the approval of her principal, her mother, her boyfriend and best friend. Her six siblings and best friends didn’t know what was going on, and her boyfriend’s parents weren’t let in on the secret either.

Rodriguez began the elaborate hoax following Homecoming in October of 2010. She started wearing baggy clothes and eventually created a fake belly out of wire mesh and cotton quilt batting. She took notes on everything people said to her as her baby bump grew bigger.

After revealing the truth last year, she told reporters she was hurt by what former friends said about her. “A lot of rumors were just that I was irresponsible. No college. It was bound to happen. I knew she would get pregnant. Doesn’t she know she just ruined her life,” she told us at the time.

Now an 18-year-old college student, Rodriguez says Lifetime’s “The Pregnancy Project” is about the power of stereotypes, and how she found the strength to “come out from the shadow of low expectations” to create her own future. I’m interviewing Rodriguez before the movie’s debut. The drama, featuring Alexa Vega from “Spy Kids” movies in the starring role, airs several times January 28 and 29.

AP Photo/Yakima Herald-Republic from April 20, 2011 as Toppenish High School senior Gaby Rodriguez talks about rumors and stereotypes at a school assembly.