When I Was Born, Another Child Was Swapped With Me

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]Hey everyone, I'm Silvia. I'm 18 years old. My life was going great until suddenly it all turned upside down.

[00:00:07]Love, drama, revenge, betrayal, happiness, and a miracle. My story has it all.

[00:00:15]Okay, I'm going to dive right into it.

[00:00:18]I have so much fascinating stuff to tell you about.

[00:00:21]Two years ago we found out that my brother Kevin had leukemia, which is cancer of the blood. At first we were devastated, but we quickly composed ourselves and decided to fight the disease together as a family. While my parents were focused on his treatment, I was busy making sure his spirits were high.

[00:00:40]I decided to spend all my time with him until he recovered. We began his treatment right away.

[00:00:46]Thankfully he was diagnosed early, so his chances of recovery were high. But he was going to have to go through chemotherapy, which has really serious side effects.

[00:00:57]First came the nausea, so he lost his appetite and started losing weight really quickly.

[00:01:03]Soon after that he lost all of his hair.

[00:01:06]He was going through a really tough time and there was nothing I could do for him.

[00:01:11]It was 11 months into his treatment.

[00:01:14]One day Kevin's doctor wanted to speak with us. The cancer is advancing despite the chemo. We need to start a new treatment, he said. Kevin needed a stem cell transplant. We needed a donor that matched Kevin's bone marrow.

[00:01:29]There is a 20 to 25% chance for siblings to be a match.

[00:01:33]They were going to get samples from my parents, too, but they were less likely to be a match. So I was our biggest hope.

[00:01:41]I prayed all night that I would turn out to be a match.

[00:01:45]The next morning we went to the hospital to get the tests done. They took three units of blood from me, my mom, and my dad.

[00:01:54]The results were going to come in a week, which meant that I'd have a whole week to pray [music] for it.

[00:02:00]The next week, the doctor called us to the hospital and gave us the bad news.

[00:02:04]It turned out that none of us was a match. We were devastated once again. As the doctor was speaking, I noticed the results on his desk. I looked at them and found an unbelievable mistake. I got so excited and showed the doctor right away. There was a mistake here. This isn't my result. Look, both my parents' blood type is O positive.

[00:02:24]But it says that mine is AB negative.

[00:02:26]This is impossible. If both parents' blood is type O, then the child's blood has to be type O as well. This means this report isn't mine. The doctor looked away. I was so confused. I turned to my dad. Dad, we studied this in biology class. This result can't be mine. I could still be a match for Kevin, I insisted. But the doctor interrupted me.

[00:02:48]Sylvia, the results are correct. Kevin's blood type is O positive, as it should be.

[00:02:54]But yours He couldn't finish his sentence.

[00:02:58]Because of this weird coincide, we found out that I wasn't my parents' biological daughter. They were as shocked as I was.

[00:03:06]The whole week, we all couldn't wait to get the results of the test.

[00:03:10]Which means that they also thought that I was their biological daughter. This left us with only one possibility. The day I was born, someone had made a huge mistake and I was switched with another baby.

[00:03:23]My parents' child grew up with another family and they thought I was their daughter, but they brought up someone else's baby.

[00:03:30]The blood type was pretty definitive, but we still did a DNA test. That confirmed it, but I couldn't care less about my own situation. I was just so worried about my brother. I wished I were his biological sister so that I could have saved his life. My parents wanted to talk to me that night. My mom said, "We love you so much. You are our daughter no matter what, But we want to investigate this further, because if we managed to find Kevin's biological sister, she might be a match. They were right.

[00:04:01]I love you so much, too, and I'm prepared to do anything for Kevin to get better, I said.

[00:04:06]We were really lucky because it turned out there were only five other babies born in the same hospital that day.

[00:04:12]Three of them were boys, and two were girls. Since I was one of the two girls, then the other had to be my parents' real daughter. We got the other family's address. I got really nervous on our way there. I hadn't thought about it until that moment, but I was about to meet my real parents.

[00:04:28]I might even have to live with them in the future.

[00:04:31]Even though they are my real parents, the idea of living with people I don't know was too scary for me. We got to the address and saw an old, dilapidated building.

[00:04:42]As my dad rang the doorbell, my legs were shaking because I was so nervous. I held onto the wall so that I wouldn't fall. Nobody answered, so we knocked on the neighbor's door.

[00:04:53]An old woman answered. We told her who we were looking for.

[00:04:56]She had financial problems after her husband died, so she and her daughter had to move in with her mother, she said. Her mother lived in another part of the country, but we were determined to get there somehow.

[00:05:09]We learned that my biological mother was a cleaner at a real estate agency. The company gave us her phone number.

[00:05:16]We sat down at a cafe, and my dad called her. He told her who he was and described the situation. He added, "It's not right to talk about this on the phone. Could we meet in person?

[00:05:27]We can all come to visit you."

[00:05:30]He was in tears as he hung up.

[00:05:32]"She's expecting us tomorrow. She sounded really sad. Sylvia, we need to hold the hospital accountable for what they're putting us through," he said.

[00:05:41]When we got home, Mom said, "You'll go with your dad. I need to stay with Kevin."

[00:05:47]The next morning, we got on the first flight to their city.

[00:05:51]We were sure that this time the door was going to be answered, and it was. My biological mother and I looked so much alike that it felt like I was looking in the mirror and seeing myself 20 to 25 years later. We both started crying at the same time. She hugged me and started kissing me.

[00:06:07]I do the same thing, hug and kiss. So, now I know where that comes from.

[00:06:12]We went inside. My dad was so nervous, he kept looking around. He and my real mom and I looked at each other. "Isn't your daughter home?" he asked. "She is, but she is very anxious. She doesn't know what to do."

[00:06:24]"Let me go see if she wants to come out," she said. She came back with her daughter a few minutes later.

[00:06:30]I'll never forget the shocked expression on my dad's face. He was spellbound. My dad had lost his mom at a very young age. Apparently, his real daughter looked a lot like his mom. He hugged her and started crying.

[00:06:43]Then he called me over and hugged both of us.

[00:06:46]>> [laughter] >> We all started sobbing.

[00:06:49]>> [clears throat] >> I suddenly had a sister now.

[00:06:51]Her name was Jenny. When she smiled, she had dimples just like my mom, meaning her biological mother. The next day, we came back home with my new sister.

[00:07:01]My mom got so excited when she saw Jenny.

[00:07:05]She even fainted for a moment, but it was all good afterwards.

[00:07:09]We had the first happy night at home since Kevin's illness.

[00:07:14]The next day, we took Jenny to the hospital. She had her blood tested to see if she was a match for Kevin.

[00:07:20]We had to wait a week again. Jenny and I had so much in common that we barely noticed that a week went by.

[00:07:27]The big day finally came.

[00:07:29]We were supposed to go to the hospital the next morning.

[00:07:32]This could be Kevin's last chance, so we were all very anxious.

[00:07:37]Jenny's face broke out in pimples because of the stress. My dad's phone rang around at 9:00 that night. It was Kevin's doctor.

[00:07:45]He had the results and didn't want us to wait until the morning.

[00:07:49]Jenny was a match.

[00:07:51]We were all so happy, but I think Jenny was the happiest.

[00:07:56]After 17 years, she found out she had a brother and now she was going to save his life. No time was wasted to start the stem cell treatment.

[00:08:05]First, they got the cells from Jenny with a simple procedure.

[00:08:10]After a week of preparations, the cells were transferred to Kevin.

[00:08:14]We had to wait for 20 days to see how Kevin's immune system would respond.

[00:08:19]Thankfully, he didn't have any issues.

[00:08:22]Everything had gone as it should have.

[00:08:24]Kevin is doing much better now. He only needs to get checked once in a while.

[00:08:29]Our terrible days are behind us thanks to Jenny. Even though my biological mother was really sad, she let Jenny move in with us.

[00:08:37]We talk on the phone all the time. She always asks a ton of questions about me.

[00:08:41]She's going to visit us next month.

[00:08:44]Jenny and I are planning to stay with her for a while in the summer.

[00:08:48]My dad got a lawyer to represent both of my moms in a lawsuit against the hospital. At the end, the hospital agreed to pay a large compensation to both of them to settle the lawsuit.

[00:08:59]This solved my biological mom's financial problems.

[00:09:03]My mom decided to use the money for the university tuition of her three kids.

[00:09:11]I said earlier that the story involved love and revenge as well. I left the best for last. Are you ready?

[00:09:18]It was not an accident that Jenny and I got switched. Yes, you heard right. It was on purpose. It was a nurse who did this to us.

[00:09:27]The prosecutor found it really weird that there was a mix-up even though there were only two girls born that day.

[00:09:33]So, they questioned the two nurses at the delivery room and got to the bottom of it.

[00:09:39]One of the nurses had dated my biological father years earlier.

[00:09:44]One night she was drunk and cheated on my dad. When he found out, he left her.

[00:09:50]But she was still in love with him.

[00:09:53]She tried to patch things up, but he wasn't interested. She was surprised to see my dad at the hospital years later, so she made up this evil revenge plan to get back at him. Well, you know the rest of the story. She switched my dad's biological child, which is me, with another baby, which is Jenny.

[00:10:11]She stood trial after she confessed to this terrible thing >> [snorts] >> and was given 11 years in prison.

[00:10:19]She changed the lives of six people, and that's if we only count the parents and the kids.

[00:10:25]So, I think this is a lenient sentence.

[00:10:28]And don't think that this stuff only happens in movies. If you like stories like this, subscribe to this channel.

[00:10:34]Bye.

[00:10:35]Hi everyone. I'm Haley.

[00:10:38]I watched a video on this channel and there was this girl who was saying, "My parents love my little sister more than me." and complaining about how they were treating her sister better. I was really moved by that girl's story because I'm going through something similar. But in our house, it's only my mother who discriminates between her children. My dad would never do such a thing.

[00:10:58]The object of my mother's affection, the one she loves the most, is my brother Aiden.

[00:11:04]Please don't get me wrong. I don't think it's my brother's fault. It's all about my mom. I don't know why, but she is very tolerant and loving towards Aiden.

[00:11:12]But when it comes to me, she bosses me around and criticizes me all the time.

[00:11:17]For my mom, my brother is always the priority. I, on the other hand, come after him.

[00:11:22]For example, what you see is my brother's old phone. This is what I'm using right now. I'm almost finishing high school, but my parents still haven't bought me a new phone. They would always give me one of their old ones. Last month they bought Aiden a brand new phone as a present and I got his old one instead. Even though he's 5 years younger than me, I'm the one getting hand-me-downs. It's supposed to happen the other way around, so I guess that makes me an exception. As I said at the beginning, my dad really loves both my brother and me. He doesn't treat us differently, but he works a lot and doesn't have too much free time.

[00:11:58]So my mother is the one who ends up shopping for all our gifts.

[00:12:03]Now I'm going to list all the gifts that my mom recently got for my brother and me.

[00:12:07]So you can better understand what I'm dealing with here.

[00:12:11]One, a laptop for my brother. A karaoke mic for me. Yes, a karaoke mic. When I asked her, "Why did you get me this?" My mother said, "You're always singing to yourself in your room.

[00:12:23]That's why I thought you'd like it."

[00:12:25]Two, an awesome bike for Aiden. A book about Albert Einstein for me. My mother's explanation for this one is that I love reading. Yes, I do love reading, but don't you think it's unfair that my brother is getting a bike and I'm getting a book? And finally, the most expensive smartphone for my brother and a cinnamon-scented candle for me. I repeat, a smartphone for my brother, a candle for me. I was shocked when we opened our presents. My face was flushed with anger when I said, "Mom, what the heck?" My mother pretended she was really surprised and said angrily, "Hayley, you love cinnamon. Your room will smell delicious. Oh, this is too much. You're not happy with anything."

[00:13:06]I can't say anything even though I'm being treated so unfairly all the time.

[00:13:11]Why? Because my mother thinks she can walk all over me just because she's my mother. She shuts me up every time without even listening to what I'm saying. She never lets me answer her.

[00:13:20]She's always right because she's the mother. She's smarter than everyone because she's the mother. Only she knows what's right because she's the mother.

[00:13:30]I can give you a thousand examples of how she treats us differently.

[00:13:34]For example, she thinks Aiden is talented in every possible way and of course supports him all the time.

[00:13:40]My brother watches a couple of chess videos on YouTube, so my mom goes out and buys him a nice chess set.

[00:13:46]>> [laughter] >> Or he sees his friend playing guitar and wants one too, so she buys him one right away.

[00:13:52]>> [laughter] >> What happens every time is that Aiden forgets about them after a few days and moves on to something else.

[00:13:59]And still my mother keeps buying him more and more stuff.

[00:14:03]However, when it comes to me, she does the complete opposite. Ever since I was little, I loved drawing. I think I'm pretty good at it, too. For a while, I was interested in oil painting. I was watching oil painting tutorials on YouTube all day long, one after the other.

[00:14:20]Even though I kept asking my mother to get me art supplies, she never did.

[00:14:25]So, I saved up my allowance and ordered them online.

[00:14:29]When the materials arrived, I immediately started experimenting on the canvas.

[00:14:34]When my mother came into my room, she saw the tubes of oil paint, the brushes, and the canvas.

[00:14:39]She laughed and said, "Don't you think all this is a little too much for someone who can only draw stick figures?"

[00:14:44]>> [laughter] >> Okay, I realize I may not be Frida Kahlo, but don't you agree that it's simply wrong for a mother to say such things to her daughter? She's been treating me like this for so long that I was wondering if all mothers are like this and I'm just exaggerating.

[00:14:59]But my friends have pretty normal relationships with their mothers. They get along really well. Some of them are even friends with their mothers. My mother, on the other hand, criticizes me all the time. My hobbies, my clothes, the shows I watch, the way I eat. She always criticizes everything I do and I mean everything. She's watching to all the time. It's as if she's going out of her way to find something wrong with me.

[00:15:26]You know what the worst part is? I think the real reason why my mother behaves this way is gender discrimination. That means she doesn't love my brother more because he's younger, but because he's a boy. I can give you many examples of this, too. [music] For example, even though I really want to go to college, my parents are not planning to send me to one. But even though my brother is only 12, we already know what he's going to study in college, chemical engineering. But do you know why?

[00:15:52]Because my dad owns a company that produces plastic kitchenware. My mother wants Aiden to study chemical engineering so that he can manage the business in the future. So you see, my mother is grooming my brother to take over the family business down the line, and she doesn't think I could do it.

[00:16:09]It's easy to see why.

[00:16:11]Because my mother thinks a factory can only be run by a man, and that is my brother Aiden. I know very well that the real reason is gender discrimination, but my mother doesn't accept it. Once when we were talking about college, she said, "Honey, unfortunately, I'm not sure you would do well in college." I asked, "Mom, why do you think that?"

[00:16:32]As if she didn't want to upset me, she said, "You know why."

[00:16:36]"What do you mean?" I insisted, and she replied, "Did you forget about the test?"

[00:16:40]I was so shocked when I heard that. When I was 13 and Aiden was eight, my aunt, who's a psychologist, gave us an IQ test.

[00:16:49]It was a simple test made for kids. It wasn't something to be taken seriously, in my opinion. The test result said my IQ is 105 and my brother's 115.

[00:16:59]According to my aunt, getting 90 to 110 points indicates average intelligence, whereas 110 to 120 points indicates above average intelligence.

[00:17:08]Based on this simple test, my mother concluded that I wouldn't do well in college. According to her, only my brother could go to college because he has above normal intelligence.

[00:17:19]That means that if for some reason I'd gotten anything less than 90, my mother would have thought I was stupid.

[00:17:25]I got really mad at my mother after what she said about the IQ test.

[00:17:29]And unfortunately, I did something I would later regret. Something that was out of character for me.

[00:17:34]This is the first time I'm admitting this.

[00:17:37]I went to the bathroom [music] and thought about my mother saying, "You won't be able to go to college because you're not as smart as your brother." It really hurt me that she could think this way.

[00:17:46]I started crying. As I was looking in the mirror, I suddenly noticed my mother's toothbrush.

[00:17:51]So, I grabbed it and dipped it into the toilet bowl.

[00:17:55]I thought I was punishing my mother. It was something I never should have done and I would undo it now if I could.

[00:18:02]My mother probably brushed her teeth with that toothbrush that night. After I went to bed, I deeply regretted what I'd done. I got up, went to the bathroom, and washed her toothbrush for a long time.

[00:18:13]Unlike my mother, my grandmother loves Aiden and me equally. For our birthdays, she buys us the same presents. When she gives us money, she lets us know that we're both receiving the same amount.

[00:18:24]I wish my mother were more like her own mother.

[00:18:28]This one time, my grandmother, my mother, and I went shopping.

[00:18:32]We were supposed to get dresses for my cousin's wedding.

[00:18:35]We went into a store to look for a dress for me. I picked three dresses to try on. After putting on each dress, I went out to show them to my mother and grandmother to see what they thought.

[00:18:44]While my grandmother was making comments, my mother did not say a word.

[00:18:48]When I put on the last dress, I said, "Mom, you didn't say anything."

[00:18:52]Do you know what she told me? "Hayley, unfortunately, no dress ever looks good on you. But, don't be upset. It's not your fault. You got your dad's genes when it comes to your looks.

[00:19:02]No one on your father's side looks good, no matter what they're wearing. Your brother, on the other hand, got his genes from me."

[00:19:10]He looks so good in everything, so it's easy to shop for him. I think we should accept this as a fact and not spend any more time shopping for you.

[00:19:17]Yes, that's exactly what my mother said.

[00:19:19]Naturally, both my grandmother and I were shocked.

[00:19:22]Trying to hide her anger, my grandmother said, "Why are you being so mean? Haley is a very pretty young girl. She looks good in whatever she's wearing. There must be something wrong with your eyes."

[00:19:33]Then she turned to me and said, "My dear Haley, all three dresses looked so good on you. We're getting them all."

[00:19:39]"I'm going to the register to pay. You can decide later which one to wear to the wedding."

[00:19:44]Because I'd gotten used to my mother's behavior, I didn't get too upset that day, but my grandmother was furious with her.

[00:19:50]Friends, it feels really good to tell you all about this.

[00:19:54]Thank you so much for listening to my story. It's definitely not fair for parents to favor one kid over another.

[00:20:00]I'm sure some of you are dealing with a similar situation. If you write about your experience, you'll let it out and feel much better.

[00:20:07]I'll be waiting for your comments. See you.