Having a baby with someone you love is usually a joyous occasion. From the moment you meet your mini-you, you fall in love with them. You want them to live a full, safe life where they can accomplish all their goals and dreams. You imagine growing old with your partner and rocking sweet-smelling grandbabies on your knee.
But what if your baby looks nothing like you? What if you start to grow suspicious that she might not be yours? What if you find out she’s not? How did this happen when you didn’t have an affair?
Sudden Accusations Confuse Wife
On a Reddit thread, a woman going by Fullyfaithfulwife posted in despair. Her husband, who she had been with since college, did a paternity test for him and their daughter and accused her of cheating on him.
She explains how she was confused as to why he would take the test in the first place and tells readers how much she loves her husband and reiterates multiple times that she never cheated.
She said he had grown distant from both her and their young daughter without a reasonable explanation. Then he hit her with the news that he’d had a paternity test done and it came back that their daughter wasn’t his.
She said he grew cold and suspicious, demanding to check her phone constantly and spending longer hours in his office. Eventually, she grew tired of this behaviour and demanded answers.
Growing Doubt Spreads Disharmony
He confronted her with his doubts because their daughters’ brown eyes couldn’t have come from him. After all, he had blue eyes, as did his wife. This one thing is what prompted him to take the paternity test.
He tried to kick her out of the house, but she wouldn’t leave and started sleeping in their daughter’s room after he locked her out of theirs.
When he finally came out of his room, she told him again that she would never cheat on him and showed him a list of tests she’d like their daughter to take that might explain what was going on. At first, he didn’t want to listen but agreed to have a longer conversation the next day. He stopped locking her out of their room and even hugged her at her request.
She implored Reddit to help her support her husband while also proving her innocence.
He warned her if the other tests proved she was unfaithful, he would ‘go scorched earth’.
An Affair Or Something More? What Would You Do?
Aussie Radio icons Kyle and Jackie O asked listeners what they would do if faced with an unimaginable situation.
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Unexpected Update
It didn’t take long for Fullyfaithfulwife to get back to users with an unexpected and shocking update.
They had done a bunch of blood tests and were setting an appointment with a chimerism specialist to determine if their baby had two sets of DNA when they got their answer.
Their daughter wasn’t hers either.
Baby switched at birth
Police came and took their statement, and the couple began the process to sue the hospital. They were trying to make sense of all of it and attempting to protect the daughter they raised so she didn’t get hurt by this.
The scared mother admitted she wished her husband had never taken the test and had begun sleeping in her daughters’ room again, terrified she would be taken away and worried about where her biological daughter was.
Fullyfaithfulwife said she didn’t know what would happen next if they found their biological daughter and their daughter’s biological parents, but that the best-case scenario might be to get a bigger house so both families could live together and raise both girls.
Dad Weighs In
Fullyfaithfulwife edited her post to add a response from her husband after some of the comments were calling him a monster for his actions. He explained he’d grown depressed during Covid and had put on weight while his wife stayed the same. He started to wonder why she was with him. Then he fell down a rabbit hole of self-doubt after joining groups on social media full of men talking about how they’d been cheated on and lost custody of their kids etc. One post hit a nerve when he said his clue was the fact that his son had brown eyes, while he and his wife had blue. Startingly similar to his situation with his daughter.
He shared his experience, and the men in the comments told him she was cheating on him. They advised him not to say anything so she couldn’t get ahead of him in the divorce. But he did the test. He did more than one and when they came back negative, he grew angry. He felt betrayed. He tried to find evidence of an affair and came up empty. When she denied it, he got angry again.
“When my wife denied it, I got angrier. I just wanted her to leave. I didn’t want to go through what everyone seemed to think was going to happen. I didn’t want to lose custody of my kid. I didn’t want to lose my house. I was scared, and angry, and I wanted the truth. I felt like if she couldn’t even be honest there was no getting past this.”
Happy Final Update
Not long after she originally posted, Fullyfaithfulwife was back with a happier update.
They found their biological daughter. She was in foster care after the couple who took her home from the hospital were being investigated and it was discovered they weren’t her biological parents. They are adopting her from foster care and, after winning close to $2 million from the hospital, are moving to a new town with a great school district.
Of the other parents she says: “I don’t know what we’re going to do about the other family. My biological daughter doesn’t seem to remember them very much, and I don’t really want to involve them if I don’t have to, but I know it’s probably morally wrong not to let them know what happened. I mean, that poor mother must not have any idea what happened. I can only imagine how horrible that would be. For now, though, I’m focusing on my daughters, and hoping to plan a beautiful life.”
She and her husband are still together and not planning on breaking up after he promised to trust her from now on.
Babies being switched at birth is something you expect to see as a plot on SVU, or a daytime movie. And even though we know it’s happened before, like with Kimberly Mays and Arlena Twigg whose story was turned into the movie Switched at Birth, it’s still scary to think about.
Is it any wonder new mums spend so much time memorising their newborn’s faces and keeping them close?
