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

[SerendipityJane]

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

I also feel for Jessica she was replaced by Claire straight away as the news came out.
I think Joan handled this very very selfishly.

Oh god my heart breaks for Jessica, even without an interview the picture that was painted said it all.

What a sad story. Like PP, I remember seeing a similar case on Long Lost Family where the mistake was realised when the children were still quite little. I think the families had decided to continue raising the child they each had with them, but maintaining very close contact and regular meet-ups so that each child could spend time with their real mother.

I don’t remember electronic tags when I had DC1 in 2005. Unless it was a tiny one inside the wristband. She was with me all the time in hospital though. DC2 was born at home so no wristbands, trackers or labels required- he was definitely mine!

I think you are awful. How can you be so judgemental.

In the near miss I know of, the mother did. She told them the child handed to her wasn't her baby. Cue much insistence by the professionals that yes, yes he certainly was and that new mums often don't recognise their babies, they change so much etc etc. Luckily her husband arrived and backed her and the mix up was discovered (once a man agreed!) This was in the 60s, but with that attitude to mums I'd be surprised if it wasn't more common than we know, despite the mums raising questions. Because after all, a mum isn't going to keep saying she thinks her baby isn't hers once it's been 'established' that it is because that's pretty taboo.

It's difficult because in a way Claire should be more bitter because she had this terrible childhood that wasn't her destiny, but at the same time, Jessica has effectively had her family snatched away from her and there's nothing to replace it. In a way, Jessica dodged a bullet but I'm sure it doesn't feel that way to her now.

but having had a couple of babies myself, I'm wondering how the mothers did not recognise that the baby handed to them was not theirs.

Were they separated from you and taken to a nursery within minutes of being born?

It was a film called switched at birth. I mean the film was based on a true story.

One of the little girls died, and IIRC they found out because she had a genetic condition which when tested for turned out that she wasn’t theirs.

I read that the other little girl did have contact with her birth family but that she later filed a suit to sever contact from them.

Ours had what looked like the security tags they put on bottles of spirits in the supermarket (the round ones with dye in) round their ankles.

Why not?

The mother had an apparently longed for daughter. She brought her up, maybe the daughter even had children of her own, the mother’s grandchildren. And the minute she found out she wasn’t actually biologically her daughter she threw her aside and embraced the real thing.

Do you think people should be that disposable?

Let’s imagine you found out now that one of your children wasn’t yours? Would you cheerfully hand it back and embrace the real deal? Really?

It would be one thing to find out the truth when they were still babies. But the way that Jessica was tossed aside, essentially thrown out of the family, it’s clear she was never really wanted in the first place.

So yes. I judge. I don’t judge someone for potentially wanting to find out the truth. But I judge a woman who suddenly find out she has a new daughter, and swaps the old one out to live out her dream.

I think Joan handled this very very selfishly.

What was she supposed to do? Tell Claire she wanted nothing to do with her? Keep quiet and hope that Jessica never found out by some other means? Suppose Jessica herself, or one of her children, if she has any, did a DNA test, then found out her mother and brother had known all along and said nothing?

or any extended family member in either of the two families could do a test and find an unexpected match, and it would all come out.

I can't imagine it was anything but traumatic for everyone involved, in many different ways.

Nobody was prepared for it. They manage how they can.

Nobody knows what had gone on with Joan and Jessica over the years. It sounds like the bio family was very chaotic and this could have been something that carried over to Jessica. It certainly doesn't sound straight-forward, and in the absence of having the full story, isn't it better to reserve judgement?

But that isn't what Joan has said. She says Jessica will always be her daughter.

All of them are in a horrible situation. The difference is Claire gains something good, whereas Jessica gained something bad.

My babies born 2003 and 2005 both had wrist and ankle bands with writing on them and black ankle tags but they were just to set off the ward alarms if someone tried to take them through the ward doors!

Of course we should, but I can't imagine being in this position and my first thoughts not being about how this would affect the daughter I raised rather than rushing to build a relationship with my "new" daughter.

I know it's impossible to really know how you would feel until you're in that situation though.

Unfortunately going behind Jessica's back will have spoken volumes to her.

It’s a tricky situation for sure . I feel for both Jessica who seems to have been pushed out like she’s some sort of cuckoo in the nest. Also for Claire who has had a terrible childhood and now appears to be making up for lost time which is understandable she’s missed out on years of happy memories.

I don’t think there is a right way for Tony and Joan to have handled this , would you reject your sister/ daughter to protect another persons feelings? I don’t think there is a good way. I understand why they met first perhaps if there wasn’t a bond they would of just let things go. In this scenario there doesn’t seem to be a way that everyone will be happy with, so you do your best.

I honestly think years ago this happened a lot and was just never known about. My relative swears this happened to them. They used to routinely take babies away from the mothers to the nursery each day and mothers used to stay in hospital for ages (my mum was in 10 days routine birth in mid 70's) so I'd imagine mix ups occurred regularily!

RFID tags aren't the big radio trackers (that criminals wear), they are for identification only - essentially a magnetic barcode (that corresponds to the baby's identification details on a database) and can be read by a scanner - most library books have one stuck on the inside back cover. They could well be enclosed in the plastic wrist bands all babies get.

Jessica didn’t gain anything. She lost everything..

Her family, her parents, her brother, any extended family she ever had. Everything.
She didn’t gain another family because they’re all dead.

So no. Everyone gained except Jessica. Who lost everything. her life, her identity.

My DD 10 weeks had a bit of paper with her name that came off day one and that was all. She never left my site though. Maybe trackers are if babies are away from you ie in NICU ?

"Now days Obviously the advice to anyone who adopts or uses donors in some way, is to never lie to the child and to keep communication open with bio family if at all possible. Because we know how traumatic it is to children not to do that"

My DM was born in the mid 1940s. She grew up hearing her parents - who had adopted her from her adoptive mother's unmarried sister - chatting about her birth origin in her presence, quite deliberately, as they knew she would be listening in, and they wanted it all to be normalised to her, so there would be no nasty shocks when she was older. It was just accepted, birth mother and aunt swapped roles, and my DM actually spent time in the summer holidays staying with her BM/aunt, whom she never once thought of as mum.

This is very cryptic. What are you talking about?

Lots of people seem to be confusing RFID tags and radio trackers. RFID tags are often found in food packets, clothes and passports. They are not dissimilar to the chip that pets have. They don’t allow tracking but they can be scanned to give details. You could put them in thin hospital bands and never know it.

There was a famous case in Australia where parents went to court to try and get their ‘real’ child returned. It was made into a film as well. Nola Jenkins case. I think it was the 1940s or 50s, so well before DNA.