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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

If you discovered your child was not your child....

128 replies

Orangejuicemarathoner · 15/09/2021 18:48

How would it affect you as a mother?

I'm asking, because of the recent experience of a (male) cousin - just having been informed by his ex that he is not the biological father of his daughter.- confirmed by DNA

He is now expected to turn his back and walk away from the child he has thought was is own for 8 years.

He isn't going to do that, and is still fighting for joint custody.

I know it is so much more unlikely for a mother to be told that, but not completely impossible, particularly with the wrong egg/fertility treatment scenario

But I've always thought it would be upsetting, of course, and leave a lot of questions that needed answering, but would not fundamentally change anything in our relationship.

I would not love my child any less, they would still be the child I had loved and raised for years.

Surely most women would feel that, so why is the expectation different for men?

YANBU- finding out I am not the biological parent of my child would not change my love for them

YABU- finding out I am not the biological parent of my child would change my love for them

OP posts:
DontStepOnTheMomeRathz · 15/09/2021 18:50

No it wouldn’t. Of course it wouldn’t.

It would however make me….curious? Worried? About the child out there who was mine. Are they happy? What if their life is crap?

QOD · 15/09/2021 18:50

Poor fella
I’m currently on a surrogacy thread as a mum to a surrogate baby and whilst I don’t have a birth child to compare her to, I love her with every fibre of my being because she’s been mine since conception and birth 💗

3womeninaboat · 15/09/2021 18:51

One of my children is genetically related to me and the other isn’t, although of course I knew from the start. I feel the same about them in every way that matters.

QOD · 15/09/2021 18:51

Oh sorry was it a fertility mix up or was she a cheater ?

Tlollj · 15/09/2021 18:53

A few years ago now there seemed to be a spate of parents taking the wrong babies home from hospital, and not finding out they had until many years later in some cases.
Awful situation to find yourself in. You’d want your own child and the one that had been mistakenly given to you.

Original poster
Orangejuicemarathoner · 15/09/2021 18:53

@QOD

Oh sorry was it a fertility mix up or was she a cheater ?
she cheated- but their relationship is over now anyway, so in itself, that doesn't really matter
OP posts:
BelleOfTheProvince · 15/09/2021 18:53

He is now expected to turn his back and walk away from the child he has thought was is own for 8 years.

Why? Seems like an odd thing to do if he is emotionally invested in the child.

I don't know about child but I found out I wasn't related to a grandparent. I was upset about it at first and then kinda forgot. After all, said grandparent had done the role so why would I think differently.
DH sometime has to occasionally remind me I haven't inherited things like risk of disease from that side of the family because I forget a lot.

I wouldn't be giving up a heartfelt relationship without a fight.

SaladDayz · 15/09/2021 18:54

I think about this pretty often! If it turned out my baby has been swapped at birth and I had the option to swap back I’d keep my son. Regardless. DH finds it a difficult decision as he feels like you owe it to your actual flesh and blood to go out there and find them and make sure they’re okay, whereas for me I wouldn’t give up my DS for anything, even if it distressed me to know my biological baby wasn’t with me. I simply love him too much.

I don’t think there is a different expectation for men and women. I’d expect someone who has raised a child as their own, believing they’re theirs, to continue wanting to raise them even if they discovered they weren’t the biological parent.

In the scenario you describe it sounds like it suite the child’s mother to want him out of her life, for reasons we don’t know. But that says nothing about people in general. I’m confident if you asked a hundred people what they’d do, the absolute vast majority would keep fighting to raise the child and would expect others to do so regardless of gender.

PinkFootstool · 15/09/2021 18:54

This happened to DH with his ex girlfriend about 12yrs ago. "His" daughter was 6mths old when he found out. DNA test confirmed it. He's never recovered. She promptly took the child to the other end of the country and has blocked him at every turn. Lots of Jeremy Kyle tales with that one though, it was a car crash relationship at every turn until the bitter end, not least of all her leaving him to move in with a bloke she met online who was awaiting sentence for robbery. Classy bird.

TheNatureOfTheCatastrophe · 15/09/2021 18:56

Swapped at birth; yes it would make a difference - because there would be a biological child of mine missing
Wrong embryo transferred to me and born to me: probably wouldn't make any difference
Wrong egg/embryo transferred to surrogate mother and raised by me from birth: I think it would make a difference to my feelings but I certainly wouldn't want to walk away or relinquish custody.

JesusInTheCabbageVan · 15/09/2021 18:56

@SaladDayz there's a film about this - Like Father Like Son. The families find out when the boys are six that they were swapped at birth, and have to decide whether to swap them back. I wouldn't!

Wannakisstheteacher · 15/09/2021 19:01

I had this exact discussion with DH last night. Both agreed that if it were a swap case we’d want to check our biological child was ok but we’d never, ever want to swap DS.

He said if I’d cheated he’d still want to be DS’s Dad, you can’t just turn off 8 years of love.

DontStepOnTheMomeRathz · 15/09/2021 19:03

Swapped at birth; yes it would make a difference - because there would be a biological child of mine missing

Do you think you’d want to swap back though?

Noorandapples · 15/09/2021 19:04

I remember watching Swapped at Birth before I had children and not understanding why they kept the "wrong" kids. Surely they would yearn for their biological children? But now I'm a mum I would never, in a million years, give up my kids. Even if it turned out they weren't biologically mine, they would always be mine! Totally get it now.

TheNatureOfTheCatastrophe · 15/09/2021 19:05

I don't think I'd want to swap, but I'd need to find my biological child and check on them and I'd want to keep in touch if at all possible.

Standrewsschool · 15/09/2021 19:07

Has he done a dna test to double check she’s not laying.

I would be furious with my (ex-)partner, but not with the child. It’s not their fault. Eight years of love doesn’t die overnight.

Good for him for fighting custody.

There was a case that made national headlines whereby this happened. The man discovered he wasn’t the father of his three children

case

knittingaddict · 15/09/2021 19:07

It's so different when your talking about women though.

If my child wasn't mine then it means that they were swapped at birth and my biological child is out there somewhere.

If a man isn't the father then it probably means that their partner was unfaithful, but there's no other child out there to worry about.

Hugely different scenarios.

Standrewsschool · 15/09/2021 19:08

If think if my child was stopped at birth, I’d want to keep both children, the bio and non-bio child!

Vaselike · 15/09/2021 19:08

There was a case about 10 years ago or more where a father in that position immediately cut the child off. The judge reviewing the case was unimpressed because fatherhood is more than biology. Quite right too.

MauvePinkRose · 15/09/2021 19:09

Do people mean Switched at Birth, about Kimberly Mays and Arlena Twigg?

That was a sad story, but mostly because I think both sets of parents were troubled themselves.

I think it would be extremely difficult to be the child in this position and while it wouldn’t change my feelings about DS I do wonder if it would be ‘kinder’ to let him go now, as a baby. I really don’t know.

onethird · 15/09/2021 19:10

I saw a TV documentary a few years ago about two baby boys who were accidentally swapped at the hospital. They were in South Africa. One family was quite wealthy and the other was not. This meant one boy was being privately educated and getting many other opportunities and the other was not. when the families met up one birth mother really clicked with her biological child while the other two were more reserved and needed more time. I really felt for everyone involved. There were so many issues to deal with. I hope both families have found peace and happiness whatever they decided to do.

RedMarauder · 15/09/2021 19:11

@knittingaddict the swapped at birth kids have fathers as well as mothers.

Saoirse82 · 15/09/2021 19:11

Wouldn't change anything for me, same if I found out one of my parents wasn't a biological one.

Twinkie01 · 15/09/2021 19:11

Happened to one of DHs friends many years ago. He was holding his son and answered the front door a man saying he had been having an affair with his wife for years and the child was actually his.

I didn't know what happened other than man went on to divorce, remarry and have more children, I don't think he had any more dealings with his 'son'.

Strangely enough the mother moved to our village many years later and helped out at school, you could have knocked me over with a feather when DH pointed her out. Real community minded salt of the earth type, would never had imagined that she had this skeleton in her closet.

Cryalot2 · 15/09/2021 19:11

Sorry but I could never unlove my children . Even I discovered that there had been a mix up in the hospital and we had the wrong baby the child I have brought up I love them so much I would die for them. I could never switch off the love I have.
But men are different from women.

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