Bringing home your baby after a long struggle for pregnancy is one of the most rewarding things a couple can experience. The sigh of relief and the “we did it” feeling finally starts to set in. Of course, then the life of a newborn takes over YOUR life, but that was to be expected!
For two couples, taking home “their” baby turned into one of the biggest shocks of their lives.
Alexander and Daphna Cardinale were already parents when they decided it was time to give their daughter a baby sibling! The Cardinale’s started their rounds of IVF (in-vitro fertilization) and after their second try, Daphna was on her way to having another baby!
After carrying the baby to term, they had a healthy birth and everything seemed to have worked out perfectly… almost.
When Alexander saw the baby in the room for the first time, he was stunned. She had dark hair and skin, a very different complexion than the couple was expecting. Alexander felt something was off:
“The room shrank, and I got really dizzy … and everything just went numb,” he said in a video released through his lawyer. “I stayed in that place for a long time.”
Two months later and the two finally agreed to a DNA test.
They waited and waited until it finally came in. With shock, they realized that their two-month-old baby wasn’t their baby at all. It wasn’t just Alexander who wasn’t related, neither of the parents were.
“The fertility clinic transferred to Daphna an embryo that belonged to … strangers,” their lawyer, Alex Wolf, told TODAY. Daphna Cardinale “was, in other words, sort of an unwilling and unknowing surrogate for another couple’s baby.”
The fertility clinic had accidentally swapped their baby with another family.
When they got a photo of the other baby, it was clear it was there’s. The lighter skin and blond hair were totally in line with what they were expecting. Now, looking at their daughter, they saw a stranger.
“I looked at her, and I was so aware that I just don’t know her I didn’t know her at all,” Daphna Cardinale said, tearfully. “So I remember thinking I was like, ‘I don’t know you,’ which is a heartbreaking thing to think of your own daughter.”
After months of meeting up with the other family, they all made the decision to swap again.
“She was four months old, we missed everything,” Daphna Cardinale said. “We missed, like the whole newborn phase we missed with her. We missed the whole pregnancy.”
It was incredibly tough, but they decided it would be best. It meant losing the baby they spent 4 months raising, but getting their biological child back. To make matters worse, their older daughter had bonded with the baby and was heartbroken by the re-swap.
Although it is hard, they are hoping to get back to normal.
They are currently in a lawsuit against the doctor and clinic who did the procedure, but it’s still underway. Aside from that, they are still working out their family dynamics and the two families visit twice a month.
Check out the video below!
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