Switched AT BIRTH
Two families’ worlds came crashing down when it was revealed their baby girls were switched in the hospital and were being raised by the wrong parents. Thirty years later, one of the mothers, who no longer has a relationship with either daughter, shares her story for the first time. Anna Leask reports
It was like a plot from a Hollywood movie — but instead of the cutesy unravelling and happy ending, this story led to nothing but heartache for a South Island mother.
It began just a few hours after two baby girls were born at Timaru Hospital in March 1990.
Suppression orders mean no one in this story can be identified — so names have been changed.
Sandra was a mum to two boys and had lost a baby girl so when her fourth child was born, a girl, she felt her family was complete.
Sandra lived in state housing, was on a benefit and moved around a lot.
She’d survived abusive relationships — among other hardships — and was trying to carve out a happy home, a solid future for her kids.
Mary and Tom, who had a son before their little girl, were business owners who enjoyed a comfortable and stable life.
After they gave birth, the exhausted women were moved to the maternity ward when beds became free — it was a busy day at the hospital so Sandra had to wait in the delivery room for a while with her newborn, who fed well and was a calm little baby.
As the women were moved to the ward, the babies were taken from them and left in a communal area for a short time.
The hospital says it has never been established exactly what happened next — either the babies were not given identification bracelets until they were in that communal area and the wrong ones were attached, or their tags fell off and were not put back on the correct infants.
Either way, the lives of both girls and their parents were changed forever.
And for years, nobody was any the wiser.
The girls were taken home with the wrong families, introduced to siblings, lived their lives for almost three years before the devastating mistake was realised.
It was only when Sandra and her partner split and he — believing the child was not his, as she did not look anything like him — sought a paternity test that the truth emerged.
And by the time the girls were 10, both were living with Mary and Tom, leaving Sandra daughterless once more.
SANDRA IS finally ready to speak after three decades of silence, other than a couple of short interviews through her lawyer after details of the swap went public.
“It was so hard back then — and it still is.
“I don’t feel like I was robbed, I was robbed. . . I went and had a baby and that baby was taken forever.”
When the Weekend Herald visited Sandra at her South Island home she was nervous, her hand shaking as she drew on a cigarette and tried to make small talk before the interview.
The “situation” with the babies had changed — if not, in part, ruined — her life.
She had to work hard to keep her mind busy, to not think about it and spiral into dark and sad places.
“When Sarah was born, I was over the moon.
“I had the two boys, and after losing a wee girl, I was really happy.
“I thought I was having another boy. . . so when [she was] born I turned around and said I would call the baby Matthew — and the nurses said they didn’t think that would work.
“When they said ‘It’s a girl,’ well, I just cried.”
Sandra was handed her baby girl and immediately fell in love.
The newborn fed well and was quiet and content. “There were no beds up in the ward so we stayed in the delivery room for a while.
“Then at lunchtime, a couple of beds became spare, so we moved.
“They put the baby out in the corridor and we went upstairs... my baby definitely was not tagged at that stage. The tags were there but they were not on her.
“I had a shower and then went to feed the baby
again and she wouldn’t feed. . . I had a closer look at her and thought something wasn’t right.
“My daughter had a birthmark. . . and this baby didn’t.
“I mentioned to the nurses that I didn’t think this baby was mine and I got told not to be so bloody stupid.”
From then on the baby was an “absolute nightmare” to feed.
“Her first feed she was really good, happy, content — a quiet little girl.
“The one I took home wasn’t any of those things. . . I just knew it wasn’t right.”
AFTER A few days, Sandra was discharged from hospital.
She says she told several other nurses she thought her baby had been swapped with another but her concerns were brushed aside.
She was told that babies change, that a good first feed was not indicative of any future feeds.
But they couldn’t convince Sandra.
Sarah — unlike her siblings and both parents — was fair-haired and light-eyed.
And she just did not “feel” like Sandra’s daughter, not like the wee girl first put into her arms after the birth.
“I mentioned this to my mother the day she came to pick us up from the hospital and Mum said ‘Don’t worry about it.’
“My sister was blond-haired and blue-eyed and my partner at the time’s brother was too, so I thought maybe it was a throwback to them.
“I just got on with it. . . “I had to. . . I knew she wasn’t mine but I just got on with it.”
Just before Sarah turned 2 Sandra and her partner broke up.
“My partner accused me of cheating on him — I think he thought I’d been with his brother and the baby was his. I never did.”
The former couple and Sarah all went for blood tests to establish paternity.
Sandra and Sarah ended up having three tests as the results were not what anyone expected.
“The first test they thought they got the blood muddled up.
“I went for a second test and they accused me of putting another child in her place.
“So I had a lawyer at the third test. “When they got the results from that one, I got a phone call at home from my lawyer. . . he asked me if I was sitting down and I told him no.
“He said ‘maybe you should’ and then he just said to me straight out — “She’s not yours.”
“I said ‘No, you’re joking’ and he said ‘No, I am not joking. . . it’s not your child at all.’
“Like I’d been saying all along, she was not my child. . . Someone finally believed me.”
Sandra says the news was like “getting a kick fair to the stomach”.
reeled over the confirmation of what she had always suspected, her lawyer swung into action and
contacted the hospital.
A major investigation uncovered the error and the hunt for Sandra’s biological child began.
It would be a year before the other family was identified and confirmed. First, they had to identify every mother who gave birth to a baby girl around the same time as Sandra. Then there was the painstaking process of locating them, engaging with them and establishing a firm DNA connection.
“When we looked back at the movement of the mothers and the babies we came to the conclusion it probably happened that day before they moved upstairs to the antenatal unit,” said then-hospital chief executive Robbie Gilchrist in an interview with the Sunday Star Times.
“There wasn’t sufficient
I mentioned to the nurses that I didn’t think this baby was mine and I got told not to be so bloody stupid.
Sandra
documentation for us to know what happened when.
“What’s most likely is that there was some delay in putting the name tags on — it’s also possible the name tags slipped off.”
Gilchrist took it upon himself to confirm the swap to both families.
“It’s probably the biggest and most difficult crisis I’ve ever had to deal with,” he said soon after.
“It’s your worst nightmare really — we can’t really imagine what it’s like to discover something like that.”
Sandra says waiting for answers, waiting to find her real child while raising Sarah — who she adored — was devastating.
“I just learned to get on with it — I still classed her as mine, I still loved her like I loved the other kids.
“We had to set up meetings with the lawyers and the hospital. . . We had to find my real baby. It was horrible.
“I was looking through the newspapers — every paper I could get my hands on to try and find a birth notice or something.
“I was just looking for a wee girl born on the same day as Sarah.”
The next step was bringing Sandra to meet Mary and Tom and to work out what would happen next.
Sandra stressed over the decisions she may have to make — while she desperately wanted her own child, she did not want to give Sarah up.
She suspected the other parents would feel the same.
The process, the waiting, was torture.
“I had to give my lawyer photographs of Sarah so he could send them off to the other family,” she says.
“Then we met, just the adults. . . They talked about what my daughter was doing, showed me photographs.
“I just about cried, she was just like her brothers.
“I knew immediately that if the child had been there I would want to grab her and just take her home — and they probably wanted to do exactly the same.”
That meeting, with Sandra's sister present for support, happened in December 1993.
THEN IN January 1994 the families came together at a local park to introduce “their” girls to each other. It was awkward, nerve-racking. No one knew what to expect, what to say, how to react or what the heck would happen that day.
“Sarah ran up to them like she had known them for her whole entire little life,” says Sandra.
“But my daughter was a lot like me — she wasn’t sure.
“I am not the sort of person to rush to children — I sit back and wait for them to come to me.
“I felt very, very awkward. I spoke to her and when she got used to me she came over and said hello. But I didn’t cuddle her.”
The girls played, the parents talked, sharing the details of the babies they had taken home and the children they were raising.
“When it came time to leave — do you think Sarah would leave? She kicked up one heck of a fuss at the park.
“She just wanted to go with them and stay with them, then and there.”
Sandra and the other couple decided not to tell the girls too much too soon.
They still had to work out their next steps. They didn’t want to disrupt the girls’ lives any more than they had to.
“Just after the girls met, the other father made a book for each of them explaining what had happened,” says Sandra.
“For a start, that is all they knew. “And then it went to court.” She took legal action against Timaru Hospital and a confidential settlement was reached including compensation for each family and a trust fund for each child.
That settlement was reportedly finalised the day before the girls turned 6.
Meanwhile, the families were working out a custody arrangement.
They decided to keep the girl they each took home — but spend time with their biological child as much as they could.
Sandra says they agreed that the children would be swapped over for holiday periods.
She says she held up her end of the agreement, but every time she was supposed to have Jane she would be told “she doesn’t want to come”.
“I didn’t get her school holidays or Christmas holidays. . . there was no chance of me ever building a bond with her. Then, they wanted more and more time with Sarah. . . I always gave them their child but I was never given mine, I was always told ‘she doesn’t want to go’.
“It really hurt, it was gutwrenching and it still is. It makes me so angry.”
By the time the girls were 10 they were both living with Mary and Tom. Sandra explains her side of events. Her sister lived overseas and became unwell.
“I went over there to pack her and the kids up and bring them home.
“I left Sarah with her birth parents and my sons with their godmother. I knew she would be well looked after, I
thought I had nothing to worry about.
“I was away for a month and when I came home I thought I’d have some time getting the house organised before I got the kids.
“When I rang them to get Sarah back I was told ‘she doesn’t want to come home’.”
Sandra was crushed but felt she could do little to fight what was happening.
“So she was with them for 18 months and then they went for full custody,” she said.
Details of the case cannot be reported for legal reasons.
But Mary and Tom were successful with their custody bid and both girls lived with them full time. After the court case, Sandra told media that the result was painful.
Her lawyer added that the custody arrangement was “reached reluctantly” and was “based on practicalities”. Tom also spoke briefly about the legal situation. “They’re living here, but there’s nothing official to say that’s forever,” he said at the time.
“I’ve been walking on feathers for years, scared to move. . . it’s not a happily ever after story yet.”
SANDRA SAYS that after that final day in court she had “no relationship with either of the girls”.
“I took Jane down to meet her dad when she was [a teenager], we spent a bit of time together then.
“I went to her 21st, her wedding. I went to the hospital the day after she had her own baby.
“But those are really the only times I’ve had anything to do with her.”
Sandra and Jane — who did not want to talk to the Weekend Herald — live in the same town now, along with Mary and Tom, who did not reposnd to a request for interview.
Sarah lives further away. “Don’t get me wrong, I see Jane around, at the supermarket and things like that and I stop and say hello,” Sandra says.
“There’s no animosity — there’s just nothing there. . . I’ve never been able to bond with her so there’s no mother-daughter feeling, there is just nothing.
“It’s like running into an old schoolfriend. . . it’s really sad.”
She says she has not had contact with Sarah for many years.
Her oldest son speaks to his “sister”.
THE TIMARU baby swap was thought to be the first in New Zealand since the 1940s.
District health boards around the country confirmed they were not aware of any similar incidents in their areas since the 1990 case.
And all said that significant care was taken and rigorous measures in place to ensure no babies were swapped in modern hospitals or maternity wards.
A midwife says that babies now room in with their mothers rather than being kept in communal nurseries like they were in the past.
“This also reduces the risk of a swap markedly.”
SANDRA OFTEN thinks about how different it would have been — how much pain, heartache and suffering could have been avoided if the hospital staff had been more attentive the day the girls were born.
“I wish they had tagged those babies properly. . . God, I wish they had left mine in my room.
“With my boys, I went to hospital and came home with my children.
“But with my daughter, I went home with someone else’s child . . . And then I had to live through the horror of it, and when everyone else found out.
“I just wanted a normal life with my kids but it’s actually been quite hellish.”
Sandra has struggled with mental health issues over the years, and there have been times she wanted her life to end.
“I’d lost my daughter at birth and to then lose the other wee girl. . . I felt like I had nothing, like I had lost everything.
“It was a really hard blow. It’s just completely buggered up my whole life.”
With counselling, antidepressants and a supportive doctor she held on and raised sons she is extremely proud of.
She had two more boys — twins — after the swap and said the hospital experience was traumatic and terrifying.
“I hated it. I had to have an emergency caesarean section. . . Mum came into theatre with me just so I had someone else there to make sure the babies were tagged properly.
“She then stayed with my sons the whole time. . . I felt panicked the whole time I was in the hospital — the babies were not allowed out of my room at all.
“I was absolutely knackered but I kept a constant eye on the twins — the hospital had already stuffed up once and I wasn’t about to let them do it again.”
The swap had affected all her boys — the older two more so.
“They understood, they knew about the situation, they knew what was going on, they weren’t kept in the dark. It upset them when she left, but like me, they had to get over it too.
“I find it really hard to think about, I’ll always find it hard.”
She says every part of her life was affected by the swap.
“I don’t trust anybody anymore. . . I’m very protective of my family, my privacy. It could have been so much different. . . I wouldn’t be so stressed, on tablets, I could at least have trust in people.
“But all that was taken away.
“I try not to dwell on it, I try to put it right to the back of my mind so I don’t have to keep reliving it.
“But I am not angry at the girls and I never have been.
“I feel sorry for them. . . they have suffered too, they have been caught in the middle of it all.
“None of us asked for this, God, I know I didn’t and the kids definitely didn’t.”
Thirty years on from the swap, Jane has her own family and Sarah has a career in education.
“I’m just glad they’ve both turned out really good,” says Sandra.
“I just got on with life the best I could, I still do. . . But it is something you never, ever actually forget about.”
There’s no animosity — there’s just nothing there. . . I’ve never been able to bond with [Jane] so there’s no motherdaughter feeling, there is just nothing.
Biological mother Sandra