Your child is a switched baby - what do you do?

Here’s the scenario. You have your child tested for something or other and discover that the child is not genetically related to you or your spouse. Or perhaps some other couple does this. In any event, the issue is traced until it is discovered that “your child” was actually born to a different couple but got mixed up in the hospital. (This actually occurred several years ago to a pair of couples in Florida, in a nationally known case).

Now presumably most people would try to maintain a relationship with both kids. But one of them will be the main one. At least for younger children, one will be in your custody and the other will be a visitational relationship. (Unless you go for a joint custody arrangement).

Of course, the choice will not be entirely yours, as the other family will be facing the same decision, and may think differently. But how would you approach it? And would it depend how appealing your genetic child turned out to be when you met them?

http://www.angelfire.com/va2/the2girls/

Here is a story that I read until the part where both mothers demanded $50 million, or something like that.

It gave me a good idea. When your baby is born, pay the hospital staff to switch your baby. Then a year later go in for a blood sample test or something, find out the kid aint yours and then sue for $50 million. Never work a day agin for your whole life.

Wow, good question.

If it was discovered within a day or two of the child’s birth, then I guess that it would be fairly easy to just correct the error, but the older the child gets, the more traumatic it would be for him/her to be swapped back, or even find out about the mistake if a switch hadn’t happened.

Sheesh, I dunno, it’s the devil and the deep blue sea really isn’t it?

Oh, hang on, how about this:

Jointly (with the other set of parents) Sue for massive compensation, then make a mini-community (assuming that you can get on OK with them, when the kids are old enough, explain that’s why we all live together; we didn’t want to swap back, but also didn’t want to lose you. everybody wins.

OK, slightly fanciful, I’ll admit.

Wow, what a question. I would want to keep the child I had been raising (I’m going to assume here that it’s been much longer than a couple of days since the birth). But I would want visitation with my biological child. I would be more than willing to work out some kind of visitation agreement with the other family. Obviously if we or they had moved really far away in the meantime, that would make things harder. I would really just want whatever would be best for the children and their siblings.

Also, I’m not one for suing people at the drop of a hat, but I would go after that hospital for all they’re worth. I need some cash to pay for all the family therapy that’s going to be necessary.

This happened in an NZ hospital and was further complicated by one of the kids having cancer and then dying from the cancer. It was an appallingly sad situation. I don’t know how it was resolved - I think the families decided to stop talking to the media although there was a court case over custody.

There was another case as well which was resolved privately between the families.

I don’t know what I would do. I would hope that the other family was a family with similar values and parenting style because I think that would make it marginally easier to sort out.

Wishbone that was the silliest cruellest idea I could possibly imagine. Do you have kids?

Primaflora, I’m barely old enough to have kids.

But think, it shouldn’t matter that you are raising somebody else’s kid, should it? My neighbors adopted a kid from Chechoslovakia and they love him like he’s their own. In nature, animals raise abandoned kin all the time, never once thinking about the fact that the kid wasn’t theirs.

Your right, maybe I shouldn’t have used the word “good”. But I don’t think the damage inflicted would be as agonizing as as you claim. At the end of the year, they get their own kid and still have plenty of time to love it, change it’s shitty diapers, and teach it new words.

It was all hypothetical.

If this happened to me, my main two concerns would be:
a) Is the child that I have raised (and my genetic child raised by another family) old enough to have formed a significant emotional attachment to the parents? I would base that determination on several criteria, e.g. the extent of their vocabulary, their ability to reason, etc… For example 3-4 years old would be an age at which I think that children would start to understand their environment sufficiently that a change of parents would be a major disruption in their lives. (Disclaimer - I don’t have any children.)
b) Does the other family, raising my genetic child, give the child a suitable environment? Some of my criteria would be - do they use physical punishments to enforce discipline? Do they give the child an intellectually challenging environment? etc…

If a) and b), i.e. the child is no longer an infant and the other family raises my genetic child in a suitable environment, then I would keep the child I have raised.

If a) and not b), i.e. the child is no longer an infant and my genetic child is not being raised in a suitable environment, I would attempt to gain legal custody of both children.

If not a) and b), i.e. the children are still infants and the other family is suitable in my view, I would ask to exchange the children.

If not a) and not b), i.e. the children are still infants, but the other family is NOT suitable in my view, I would face a difficult decision. But I would say that I have no legal or moral right to keep the baby that is not mine. I would get my baby back, and recommend to social services that the other family is not a suitable environment for a child if their child-rearing practices are egregious enough to warrant government intervention.

You know?
I’ve thought about this, and I think I would just let things be. I would be upset…but I can’t see the point in disrupting lives just because we share some blood traits.
I would contact the other family, share medical history…but I mean…I think what counts is that the child is the one YOU raised…not the one who merely shares chromosomes.

I hope that doesn’t sound tacky…it’s just the way I feel.

You know, Primaflora, that is a damn good point, and one I hadn’t really ever thought about: for some reason in my mind I always assumed the two families would be more or less alike. The situation would be complicated tenfold if the other family were stongly racist, or Scientologists, or the sorts of parents who aren’t abusive enough to call family services but whom neglect and belittle their children just short of what is illegal.

Wishbone:

I think that the assumption is that most people, upon finding out that someone else has thier biological child, are going to want both: the child that is theirs because they raised it and the child that is thiers because of genentics. Recognizing that both families can’t have both children unless they all move in together, some sort of compromise has to be worked out. Think about it: if you know you had a biological child out there, wouldn’t you want the oppurtunity to visit/get to know them, and wouldn’t that desire be seperate from the love you continued to feel for hte kid who was your own?

I disagree with one of your points Arnold: I think that the degree of attachment you had formed to the child would be at least as signifigant as the degree of attachment the child had formed to you: after, say, eight months, you can fall seriously in love with a particular kid–after all, for almost a year that little person has been the absolute center of your world. I don’t think it would be easy to resign yourself to never seeing that person again, even if you knew they were OK. I mean, the death of a child is the most brutal thing anybody can go to. Having a child taken from you, never to return, has to be almost as bad. I think under these circumstances some sort of visitation rights would be the only way to keep the situation from being totally overwhelmingly painful–I am envisioning a relationship similair to the relationship the biological parents have with their offspring in an open adoption: a sort of avunuclar status.

Sounds SNAFU to me. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Here’s a funny idea. What if the courts said they had to switch kids every month or so, then gave the kids the right to choose which parents they wanted to be with at the age of 10. What would happen if both kids chose the same set of parents? Dire heartbreak for one set, that’s for sure.

Manda JO, my attitude towards children now (and many people have told me “you’ll think differently when you have a baby”) is that I enjoy their company once they are old enough that I can have a conversation with them, but before that they leave me indifferent, in that I don’t particularly enjoy holding a burping baby, wiping their spit-up, or watching them practice facial expressions. That’s why I chose the cut-off point that I did. Other people will probably have a different opinion as to the time at which a permanent attachment is formed.

Of course, the avuncular relationship (as you so aptly put it) would be an excellent solution if possible. I would hope that the two families would keep in contact and, better yet, become good friends, so that the former parents and children can have close ties.

The worst case I heard was discovered when the little girls were about 3 years old. One of the sets of parents died in a car crash not long before the mistake was discovered, and the grandparents decided to raise the girl. Last I heard the bio parents and the grandparents were still in court, since the grandparents wouldn’t even let them see their biological kid.

The sad part (well, one of the sad parts) is that the Florida case, as I recall, was only discovered after the death of one of the children. Like the NZ case mentioned by Primaflora, the switch was discovered when one of the girls needed treatment for a serious heart condition, that led to her death. During the testing, her doctors realized she could not be related to either of her parents.

This must be very heartbreaking for both families. One set of parents has lost their child, and it must seem like a miracle when suddenly they discover they have another child. The other parents are also grieving for a child they never knew, and are worried about losing the child they raised.

The best case scenario would be the avuncular relationship MandaJO described. In the most positive case, there could be many benefits – an only child might discover siblings, you would have the relief that each child will receive better medical care because the doctors will know the family’s medical history, two sets of doting grandparents instead of one.

If this wouldn’t be TOO WEIRD, and it might be, I would want to involve any siblings as much as possible. It would be easier (I think) on a child who suddenly had to visit his “new” family if his brother was also going. This makes it seem more like a visit than being ripped from your home. Also, instead of switching the two children for 4 weeks every summer, both children would spend 4 weeks together with family A, and then 4 weeks together with family B. This could be more like gaining a sibling than becoming a changling. Of course, this is all on the premise that I think the other family is at least somewhat normal.

I don’t have children, so I tend to agree with Arnold on the bonding thing. The earlier the switch is detected, the easier it would be to let go of one baby. Personally, I would still like to have some contact with the other family, regardless of who gets which child. I can also see how one family might like to foster a long-term relationship, while the other family might take a “let’s move on with our lives and forget about this” attitude. It’s hard to say whose view would take precedence, it’s not like there’s a compromise. Well, “some contact” might be a compromise between the commune idea and no contact, but there’s no compromise between some contact and no contact.

If I ever have a switched baby, I hope the other parents are Dopers, that would seem to make things a lot easier. :slight_smile:

I agree with the “many people”. If you do have a child you will likely love that child from birth or shortly thereafter. (This does not imply that you will come to love burbing babies. But at least you’ll put up with it.)

the final question in my OP does not seem to have been addressed, but I find it intriguing. Suppose you met your biological child and found them to be an unattractive and obnoxious child. By contrast, the child that you raised is far more appealing. Or vice versa. To what extent would this affect your thinking on the matter?

I’ve thought about this a lot more ever since Cranky Jr was born and it nearly makes me puke in sheer anxiety, it seems so awful. Cranky Jr. looks just like me, so no worries at our end–it’s just that finally experiening maternal feelings gives me a creepy window on this type of thing.

I’d always thought that I’d have no problems being an egg donor. After I had Cranky Jr, no more. Now that I was a mom, I couldn’t stand the thought that a life I helped make would be off in circumstances I don’t know about. What if the parents spanked the baby? What if they let it cry for along time without picking it up? I couldn’t stand to think those things were happening. For the same reason, I’d feel very conflicted if I found out my biological child was being raised by someone else by mistake thanlks to a hopsital switch. There’s no doubt I’d be attached to the baby I was raising, but I’d agonize over the quality of life of my biologival child. I’m not sure what I’d do about those feelings, but you can bet I’d feel tortured.

True story: My sister was switched with another baby in an Air Force hospital in 1963. The mistake was discovered within a matter of hours and righted before either left the hospital. How? I don’t remember the exact story, but either my sister was taken in to the other mom or the other baby was brought in to my mom. The other baby was a boy, so it was fairly easy for whichever mom noticed the mistake to convince the staff that ‘this one isn’t my baby’.

What I’d do? I don’t know, I wouldn’t have a baby in the first place.

The Florida case-Kimberly Mayes and Arlene Twitchell?

What was weird, is that the girl who died, Arlene (really Kimberly, but we’ll call her Arlene) died of the same heart condition that her biological mother died of. Isn’t that sad?

Mrs. Mayes died when her daughter Kimberly, was very very young.

You know what? I think the Twitchells would never have started the whole case had Arlene not died…I saw pictures of her, beautiful girl. So sad…

Who can tell unless you’ve been in the situation? But in my case I will venture to say that it would have no bearing on my decision.
For example, I enjoy spending time with my nephew and niece more than with some other children I know who may be more physically attractive, more intelligent, etc… But I love my nephew and niece (similarly to the love that you have predicted I would feel for my baby.) The love arises from a close association for several years, which I don’t share with other children. Similarly to my wife. Is she objectively the most beautiful woman in the world? Probably not. But she is the most beautiful woman in the world to me.