The little boy born to the main character in this movie was actually a little girl in the true story, but the real woman, who Melissa Gilbert played, wanted to protect her daughter by changing that detail.
Melissa Gilbert wrote in her 2009 memoir Prairie Tale that she really didn't want to do this TV movie. The producers wanted her, and kept upping the salary, but still she kept declining. Soon after her agents phoned to say would she change her mind for a half million dollars. She groaned and called out to her husband at the time, Bruce Boxleitner, "It's up to half a million dollars. What do I do?" He called back, "You get on that plane and you make it work!"
Both Melissa Gilbert and George Dzundza had also worked on Batman: The Animated Series.