It’s 1 a.m. and the baby’s fussing. Stephanie Ortiz rises from bed, groggy, tired. Royal needs his diaper changed. Methodically, and like a good mom, Ortiz takes off her baby’s onesie and diaper. As she lifts Royal’s leg — pop! It comes clean off his body. “You don’t see that every day!” she laughs joyfully into the camera, holding the leg in her hand.
Welcome to the world of Reborn dolls.
The Reborn community is a tight-knit, creative class of mostly women who create, collect and role-play with dolls that look so much like real babies, they’re spooky and beautiful all at once.
Go to YouTube and search “Reborn doll” and you’ll find more than 90,000 videos from people of all ages showing off their incredibly realistic, hand-painted dolls and role-playing with them in ways that feel both playful and intensely intimate.
“I’ve always loved baby dolls, and babies in general,” says Ortiz, 33. Ortiz is a Reborn collector and artist, known within the community as a Reborner. She lives with her wife and teenage daughter in California.
Ortiz collected and created Reborn dolls as a hobby for four years until she was laid off from her job as a manager at a landscaping company last year. She took it as her chance to become a full-time Reborn artist, and since then, she’s become a celebrity within the community.
“I never thought I’d become a sought-after artist,” Ortiz says. “I was at a doll show recently and people came up to me crying. I didn’t even know what to say.”
The process of creating each doll — or Reborning — is painstaking, but enjoyable, Ortiz says. She works on five to eight dolls at a time, a mix of custom orders, dolls she can sell on YouTube or Instagram and babies for her own collection.
“I can’t just work on one doll,” she says. “I get bored. Each baby has its own little personality, which makes it exciting to work on many at a time.”
Ortiz orders the dolls in parts, which she then transforms into lifelike baby dolls by hand-painting every vein and freckle, rash and blush. Reborn dolls weigh 4 to 5 pounds and have weighted limbs and a cloth body that give them the feel of a real baby. The head is also filled with glass beads to give it the floppy likeness of an actual newborn.
Each doll takes about 40 hours to complete, and Ortiz works seven days a week, often well into the night.
Her hard work and impressive skills pay off, as the dolls start at $600 and sell for up to $1,000. If that’s above your price range, Ortiz isn’t worried; there are plenty of other people eager to buy her creations.
Take Julie, a mother of six from Texas. Julie has always loved dolls of all sorts, but only started collecting Reborn dolls last year. Since then, she’s purchased numerous dolls from Ortiz and considers her a close friend, even though they’ve never met in person.
“She’s an incredible artist,” Julie says. “Her dolls look so real, they even remind me of my own kids at different ages.” Ortiz has just six dolls in her personal collection (baby Royal included), though she’s owned at least 50 at different times since she discovered the Reborn community.
Why so few dolls for a woman who can create so many?
“I like my dolls to lie realistically,” Ortiz says. “Would you ever see two babies in a bouncer? I like to treat them like real babies.”
With a few notable exceptions, of course.
“Unlike real children,” she adds, “you can sell these children.”
‘Unlike real children, you can sell these children.’
- Stephanie Ortiz
But it’s this notion that Reborners and the people who collect them actually believe the dolls are real that plagues the community. It’s not uncommon for collectors to call themselves “Reborn mommies” and set up full nurseries in their homes. And a large part of the hobby is role-play; many Reborners and collectors enjoy interacting with their dolls as though they are real babies, though most who post videos include disclaimers clarifying that they know otherwise.
The potential for stigma is so strong for Julie that she’s only told a few of her children about her hobby, and doesn’t mention it to friends. She even admitted hiding her dolls in a closet when she knew she’d have visitors over.
“My daughter thinks they’re creepy,” she says. “I’d like to take my dolls out like others do, but I’m not sure people would be supportive.”
While Reborn dolls have sometimes found space in the homes of women who can’t have children or who have lost children, Ortiz said the majority of her buyers are strictly hobbyists.
“Yes, I’ve made dolls for people who can’t have kids and just want to hold it,” she says. “I’ve made them for people with stress disorders. But for me, they don’t fill a void in my life. It’s just a lot of joy.”
The Reborn community is generally supportive internally, but Ortiz says she’s often misunderstood and bullied by outsiders online. Her YouTube page, with its almost 50,000 subscribers and over 47 million views, is easy prey for Internet trolls.
Scroll through the comments on any of Ortiz’s videos and you’ll find such comments as, “this woman is crazy…”; “that is just so creepy, stop”; “do you have mental issues? It’s a f—king doll,” and on and on.
“Just because I have the dolls doesn’t mean I want a real baby,” she says. “I have a real kid. With the real kid comes the crying, the sleepless nights, the expense. I have the Reborn babies because I can buy those cute little outfits and they’ll never throw up on them.
“I know they’re not real.”
When the haters become too much, Ortiz falls back on her family, who are supportive of her hobby.
“Whenever I get down about the mean comments, my wife or daughter will say, ‘Get a doll, we’re going out.’”
‘I have the Reborn babies because I can buy those cute little outfits and they’ll never throw up on them.’
- Stephanie Ortiz
“When my daughter was younger, I think there was a time when she was jealous of the dolls,” Ortiz says. “But now it’s something we share.”
Ortiz’s videos are fun and playful. She frequently brings her dolls on errands or to DisneyLand, where she goes almost daily with her family (they have a season pass).
“Interactions in public are amazing,” Ortiz says. “I’ve never had any negative comments.”
And part of the reason for that, Ortiz says, is because her dolls look so lifelike, people often don’t know they’re not real.
“If I have the doll with me and I make an unexpected errand, I won’t leave it in the car seat,” she says. “I always flip the car seat over on top of the doll, so people won’t think it’s a real baby in there.”
Other times, Ortiz says, people will remark how cute her baby is, and when she tells them it’s not real, the likeness is so uncanny, they don’t believe her.
“One guy was so convinced the doll was real, I finally had to point out its eyes didn’t blink,” she says.
“It’s a compliment to me. I know I’m creating something that’s so real, people think it’s a real baby.”
And despite any backlash she may encounter, Ortiz says she’s only becoming more inspired to film more serious role-play videos with her dolls and go on adventurous outings.
“The community needs a positive light,” she says.
“I want to have fun with my kid and my family and whatever hobby I enjoy. There’s no reason to be ashamed.”