The DNA test that showed two women had been swapped at birth

[SerendipityJane]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp3njqd9nl9o

I’m a 50s baby and my mum often recalls how a different baby was given to her one day, but she realised it wasn’t me straight away 😐

They can’t have been that lovely to treat her like that after the discovery.

Treat who like what?

I think the fact she no longer calls her mother mum, and that’s all they said, and the mother says that despite these things she feels complete with her new daughter speaks volumes.

That’s not respecting someone’s privacy, the answers lie in what hasn’t been said.

Any decent mother would be devastated at losing her actual child, as in the one she brought up. Jessica is her real daughter not Claire. Claire is a daughter in name only. Jessica is the one she brought up and should be the priority.

The leaps on here have been absolutely astounding. Makes me worry about the reading comprehension of the general public 😆

She didn’t say, “despite these things she feels complete” she said “she only feels she has GAINED a daughter” i.e., she hasn’t lost a daughter and still very much feels that Jessica is her daughter. It was an olive branch and message to Jessica, to say, even though you don’t call me mum anymore you will always be my daughter.

We have absolutely no idea what other complications existed in their relationship before the baby swapping came to light. It’s possible that not everything was rosy before this situation and impossible to assign “fault” given what little we know.

I meant it from Claire's point of view- she felt she gained a lovely family. What did Jessica gain?

Very shocked at all these people essentially saying they would not welcome someone into their family just because it turned out they had given birth to them...
That's your child!!
Obviously any children you have raised are also your children regardless of wether they are biologically related to you..
But are you honestly telling me that you'd not want to know if it turned out a child you'd given birth to had been accidentally placed with another family!!
If they sought you out because they wanted to know you, their biological mother??

I just can't fathom that. I'd let any child of mine straight into my family. Be that one I raised or one I did not raise. I'd consider it my duty tbh.
Think of the pain you'd cause by rejecting them.. why should they go thru that?

And the people here acting like Joan shouldn't have embraced claire.. what would that have achieved apart from hurting claire? It wouldn't have made the situation any less real.. it wouldn't have made the relationship between Joan and Jessica closer.. Jessica may well have found out somehow anyway and still gone thru this massive identity shift.
You really think the mum should have rejected her other child?

Had my DS at the UCH in 2010. He had a tracking tag on his ankle. Several years later, same hospital, I had my DD. As we were leaving, a member of staff came to remove her tag, that had never been put on.

I listened to the podcast. I was shocked at how little consideration had been given to Jessica throughout the whole process. The new family are all delighted with each other. She is just the person who shouldn’t have been there and a waste of their time. So much talk about what Claire lost and what she ‘should have had’. Poor Jessica has lost her whole identity and had no family now .

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0gd2dgb

D you think that sperm and egg donors should welcome the resulting children into their family embracing them as their children 50 years down the track?

What about surrogates?

The rights and wrongs of donation and surrogacy aside, this essentially amounts to the same thing.

And what about the other way around? Should a child who was switched at birth embrace the person who was their biological parent even though they were raised by someone else?

Claire was her child by biology only. It takes a lot more than biology to be a parent. Jessica is the one she raised, Jessica’s feelings are the ones which should have been paramount in all of this.

Claire’s mother didn’t want to know, presumably because she’d brought up Claire as her daughter, and to all intents and purposes she is her daughter and Jessica isn’t.

People who think that Jessica should have embraced this as having another sister are deluded. She had her whole identity snatched from her overnight. Not only that, she was replaced by someone else who has now taken centre stage.

I’d be interested to hear what the other two brothers had to say, because they’ve also been remarkably quiet in all of this. And nowhere does it say that they’ve all spent time as a family, it was only Tony and Joan who seem to be embracing this new dynamic.

These biological introductions often have a higher price to pay than they’re worth. They cause far more hurt than they resolve, and they’re IMO best left alone.

If I found out through DNA testing (it will never happen because there is no way I’m ever going to give my DNA to some company who could do God knows what with it in the future), but if I did, and I found out that I either had a half sibling, or that one of my parents wasn’t my parent, or that my DS wasn’t mine then no, I genuinely wouldn’t do anything with it.

My parents are my parents. My child is my child. He’s the one I brought up, and no random DNA match would change that.

I think that DNA is still part of everyones identity. Its still about knowing your heritage and this sense of 'who looks like me'.

We can pretend this is insignificant, but the trouble is in doing so we damage people's well being.

Given the number of adoptees who say they felt like 'something was missing' or 'they didn't belong' and then track down their biological family and find this makes a lot of sense to them and their own story (yes even the bad stories give an understanding of that - including where adoptees ultimately don't become cheristed members of the family).

I think this is where we have caused a significant problem which will come out in years to come with regards to sperm, egg donation and surrogacy. Indeed we are already starting to see the beginning of this because sperm donor babies have those questions and are trying to find them out - or are finding siblings they didn't know about.

We have been grossly naive in this assumption that you can just 'build' a family.

It ISN'T a replacement for that biological aspect - we retain that desire to understand ourselves from our past.

A non-biological family DOES have a place for many, but understanding that this may play a different role and doesn't replace a biological one is something we all need to wake up to.

I've talked about the concept of identity formation in different contexts on MN before - we have individual identity and we have collective and group identities with family identity being one of the most important of these.

I think we will increasingly see that disruption to our understanding of family identity causes psychological harm and distress. So yes, finding out you aren't blood related matters. Or finding out you have a 'bonus' sister may not necessarily be a joyous thing if as part of that you understand there was an event that sparked that. There maybe feelings of anger and regret. A feeling that you 'knew all along why you were treated differently'. Etc etc.

The idea that we can just play happy families and live happily ever after without facing this and acknowledging this head on is frankly ridicilous.

And yes, I abbsoluetely do think that donor parents owe an obligation to their child to explain their decision making to any children they have - legal and non-legal children. These siblings deserve the right to choose what, if and relationship THEY want to have. These donor parents DID NOT just make a decision thats just on them and without implications. There are implications in terms of ensuring children don't inadvertially end up in relationships with close relations for starters. And wanting to know your biological medical history isn't a small thing either.

It frustrates me intensely that its so over looked and santised because the market for donor sperm and eggs is driven by the demands of exceptionally priviledged and wealthy individuals, usually at the expense and exploitation of much more vulnerable ones EVEN in cases of altrusism.

We are just beginning to touch on this as a whole new ethical issue and one thats only going to become more significant. Cases where men have fathered far more children than they should are particularly disturbing too.

There needs to be transparency and accountability in this area which focuses on the rights of the unborn child as well as the desires and beliefs of the parents.

I think the fact that Joan had lost one (or even two) baby girls through still birth is very significant here. Knowing that your biological baby was given to another family must have had an even greater impact in these circumstances. She got one back she didn't even know she'd lost. I wonder if she ever thought Jessica might have been a different child? I did wince when she said they gave me the wrong baby. Poor Jessica, to feel like she's the 'wrong' one and Claire is the 'right one'. Factually correct but nobody wants to feel like they are the wrong child after being part of a family for 50 years.

I agree she has been a victim in this scenario and I can well see why she's gone very quiet.

Is it possible to get ancestry to delete a persons DNA database? I want to have mine deleted. How could I trust that they would actually do that anyway?

I am really surprised at the harsh judgement Claire is getting. Her daughter was given to the wrong person. That is absolutely heartbreaking. Decades later she gets to finally build a relationship with her. To pretend that biology is nothing is naive. Parents who adopt do so out of choice. Claire did not chose to raise a child that she did not give birth to. I assume the best and not the worst, that she provided a loving home not that she has sidelined the daughter she raised. Too much is being read into Jessica's reaction. By not discussing her they are respecting her privacy. It would be wrong to say too much about her after she has expressly asked not to be involved. The 1980s documentary posted earlier in the thread really shows the emotional impact on the mothers (and daughters).

Meant to say Claire's mum.

They probably said that to stop everyone who's had a child in the last 44 years from panicking - imagine the fall-out from that! Mine was born in 2004 - no radio-blah wristband for her either. She was never out of my sight.

Even if they do delete it, it doesn't mean someone else hasn't linked you to their tree.

Yes legally they have to delete from their database though.

The Mum and brother had narcissistic sounding responses in their interviews. Of course Claire’s joyous response to find them really fed into that for them. All her losses Claire says she lost are to do with missing out on being with Joan and Tony’s family.
Makes sense for Claire, who said her Dad was the only light in her childhood of absolute poverty and homelessness.

Tony sounded absolutely chilling, laughing in his interview about how they went to meet the NHS trust and ‘he was trying to have a meeting and Jessica couldn’t stop crying’. Zero empathy. He says there have been far more positives than negatives from the whole situation. My heart absolutely goes out to Jessica. Absolutely beyond devastating.

The compensation discussion though is confusing. I don’t know how you compensate anyone for that ‘mix up’.

I thought exactly the same.

I thought the same about Tony. The only person showing any empathy for Jessica was a total stranger.