Baby Switching...
By twoey68
@twoey68 (13627)
United States
August 28, 2009 10:57am CST
This is a what-if question…I was watching a program the other night and a couple wanted a neighbor woman to have a blood test done to prove that her daughter wasn’t theirs. The two women had their babies within minutes of each other and the couple had just found out through blood work that their daughter wasn’t theirs…by the way, both babies in question are now in their 50’s!!
It got me to thinking, how would a person react if they found out that their baby wasn’t theirs years after it had grown up or at any time in it’s life? Would it make a difference in how you feel about the baby you raised? Would you be able to let the one you raised go live with their natural family? What about the child you never knew but now is in your life?
I’d be absolutely devastated if something like this happened to me…I can’t imagine that it would change any feelings I have for the child I raised…after all giving birth is just one part of having a child. I also can’t imagine how it would be to be either of the kids that were switched, regardless of age.
What about you…what if your child(ren) had been switched at birth?
[b]**AT PEACE WITHIN**
~~STAND STRONG IN YOUR BELIEFS~~[/b]
10 people like this
25 responses
@scififan43 (2434)
• United States
2 Sep 09
I do not think that I would like if my children were swicthed at birth. but if they were, I hope that the evoroment they were raised in was a good one.
@walkinmyshoes (18)
• United States
29 Aug 09
when I had my son that was a what if that came to my mind. as soon as he came out and i cut the cord i stayed with him. I left my wife in the room and i went with the baby. once they put him down on the heated beds that they go on i started checking for vissible markings.(birth marks and such.) that way i would know for sure that when i did leave and come back this was my son.. there were about 5 other babies born that day and it was only me and another dad that stood there almost the entire night, me with my son and him with his daughter.
1 person likes this
@slickcut (8141)
• United States
29 Aug 09
That would be a terrible thing but after i had raised a child & went through all the child hood illnesses & stayed up with them when sick, i could not give them up at all..i could never unlove a baby i raised even if i found out later it was not my baby....As far as i would be concerned the child i raised would always be mine regardless.....I would probably want to know my real child but they could never take the place of the one i raised.....
1 person likes this
@drannhh (15219)
• United States
28 Aug 09
When I was about to be born one of the nurses told my mum to go to another hospital because they were switching babies at the one in our community. My mum and dad had a huge fight about it but mum won and dad drove her a long ways to a different hospital and he always held that against her. Years later, after both of them had passed on, I was watching a TV documentary and the hair started raising on the back of my head, if you know the feeling, because it was about that exact community back at the time I was just being born, and the hospital administrator and the local judge of that town were in conspiracy to cover up the fact that the hospital was a mill for baby selling. If a poor family came in with a healthy child, the doctors would switch them for some sickly infant just born to rich parents and the poor family would not be told and would get nothing...except high medical bills for the life of "their" new baby. I always sort of wondered what it would have been like to grow up in a rich family instead, but in the long run I think it was better to be raised by honest poor folks, however ignorant, than the kind of people who would buy a child.
1 person likes this
@dragon54u (31636)
• United States
28 Aug 09
I would love my child even if it were someone else's. I'd like to get to know the one he or she was switched with, but it wouldn't change my feelings. Giving birth doesn't make you a mother, just as getting a woman pregnant doesn't make you a father. Raising the child and loving it means more than blood ties.
1 person likes this
@sophie_dfuss (2365)
• Philippines
29 Aug 09
I have heard a lot of those stories ever since I was a kid. My mother even told me that maybe I am not her daughter and maybe have been switch with somebody's baby in the hospital! I know it sounds so cruel but I know that she is my biological mother besides I look like my father and other cousins from my father's side!
I think the baby switching in the hospitals are not true at all or maybe it has happened once and its just an accident but it doesn't happen all the time. I have watched so many soap operas like that on tv in the past and I am happy that it has not happen to me.
@sacmom (14192)
• United States
6 Sep 09
My husband and I worried about this when I was pregnant with our oldest. We were hoping he would have some sort of birthmark to help distinguish him from any other babies that were born in the hospital that day. Lucky for us, there was! LOL Plus both of our children wore special security bracelets and anklets that set off an alarm if they were taken out of the hospital room or the exit. But had either of our babies been switched and we found out years later we'd continue to love and raise the kids that we have brought up. Though I'd like to keep in touch with my birth children so that I could be a part of their life as well.
Happy mylotting!
@writersedge (22563)
• United States
30 Aug 09
I was born very close to the time of my cousin. My Mom and her Mom were in the same hospital. We looked a lot a like as babies. As we got older, we looked more and more like our Mothers so I know that we are not in the wrong family, but when we were little, we looked a like. It was not until puberty that we started to look like our Mothers and not so much like our fathers (we're related on the fathers' side). But there were times when I wondered if I was in the wrong family.
@CatsandDogs (13963)
• United States
12 Sep 09
I don't know about the other family and how they'd deal with it but I'd want to keep it opened meaning, knowing that the child I raised isn't mine would never ever change my feelings for the child for I'd love it as if it were my own and I'd love the child that I gave birth to as well. I'd want to keep the relationship opened so they both can visit each of us without any malice feelings for it's not anybody's fault except for the hospital who switched the two children.
I don't have any children because I can't have them but if I were in that situation, that's how I'd handle it but doesn't mean it would go that way because it depends on how the other family would take it all in.
@paula27661 (15811)
• Australia
29 Aug 09
I’ve heard of stories like this and often wondered how I would feel. I look at my child who is the spitting image of her dad, by the way (LOL) and I wonder what my reaction would be if I was told she was not biologically mine. Loving her the way I do I am certain that it would make no difference whatsoever; she would still be my daughter now and forever. The issue would be the other child; how could I ignore the fact that she was really mine? I guess the same feelings would apply to the other family.
Having contact with each other’s children would be the only answer I guess if at all possible. Devastating situation though and worth a lawsuit I think...
@foreigntradecareer (166)
• China
29 Aug 09
well, I never thought of that kind of thing before,. While if that happens to me, I would like accept the realistic and raise my baby well just as my own baby,I would not see him or her in another sight and treat him/her differently, I would just take care of him/her all through my life.
@youngpatrol (425)
• United States
29 Aug 09
I can't imagine it happening but if it did I would love the one child that I had brought up as my own. How could a parent that has brought a child up even for 20 year's all of a sudden say your not mine, and I don't want to see you again. That would be horrid.
@GardenGerty (157551)
• United States
29 Aug 09
I do not believe it would change my feelings for the child at all. I would hope that both children had been raised in a secure manner and could handle the sudden news of their switch at birth. I would think the best solution would be if they all formed one family.
@Hatley (163781)
• Garden Grove, California
28 Aug 09
twoey hi oh my if I found out that my son
'Robbie was notreally my son i would be
devasitated as he is my son no matter what
and I dont think I could let him go to'
strangers but again he is a grown man
so probably safe there.
@tamarafireheart (15384)
•
28 Aug 09
Hi twoey68,
I would be devastated but I would still love the baby that I have raised and won't make a different but it would just heart breaking for your child and yourself but other then that the love will still be there.
Tamara
@savypat (20216)
• United States
28 Aug 09
I would hope that each child, no matter how old would simply gain another family to love and care about them. My feelings for the child I raised would not change but feelings for the child I didn't raise would most likely increase.
@CRIVAS (1815)
• Canada
28 Aug 09
Wow that is definately something that I would hope never happened to me or my family. I have two beautiful daughters and I can honestly say that I would love them the same even if they weren't my blood children. As for the "children" in this case, I would think that it would be up to them what they wanted to do about it. I do think that hospitals should take more care to ensure that this kind of thing doesn't happen again, for all they know, the parents of the switched children could sue, regardless of who much time has passed since the incedint.
@lelin1123 (15595)
• Puerto Rico
28 Aug 09
This is a hard one to swollow but if I raised my child believing it was my child I wouldn't feel different about the child I raised. My feeling wouldn't change because its unconditional love that you have for your child. Don't get me wrong I would be upset that the switch had happened but what would I be able to do now after all these years. It wouldn't change my love for the child I raised.
