Siblings make jokes about it when their parents aren’t around, but it’s one of a parent’s worst possible fears: having your precious bundle of joy switched at birth. But for one family in Moldova, an Eastern European country, it became a horrible reality.
In 1978, two sets of parents welcomed beautiful baby girls, Valentina and Tatyana, in the same hospital. But after the babies were bathed, Valentina and Tatyana each went home with the wrong parents. They grew up with loving parents who wouldn’t find out about that accidental switch for a long time to come …
In spite of their best efforts, both sets of parents dealt with some difficulties. Neither baby would nurse easily. Neither baby could be pacified easily, but for new moms, it’s difficult to tell if it’s just normal baby behavior or if something’s actually wrong … So, they both just accepted the strange behaviors.As fate would have it, though, Tatyana’s family had a neighbor who actually knew both families, and she could not help but notice how the babies she saw didn’t look like their supposedly biological parents. Everyone in town had heard the rumors, but this neighbor had a feeling they weren’t rumors at all but rather a horrible, secret truth.
Before Tatyana’s family moved to the United States in 1999, this neighbor finally let them know her suspicions. Tatyana’s parents had their own suspicions arise, as well, and wanted to know if the little girl that they raised and loved as their own was actually their child, biologically. To their great disappointment though, the family couldn’t find Valentina or her family and let the whole thing go.In August of 2017, Tatyana, who was aware of how different she was from her family, took to Facebook in search of Valentina who she remembered hearing about as a kid. When she found her profile, she realized how incredibly similar Valentina looked to the family that raised Tatyana.
They connected over the ne
xt several weeks, exchanging information and baby photos and decided to take the next steps: a DNA test and a meet and greet for the first time after 39 long years. And as it turned out, Tatyana and Valentina really were switched at birth.
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