A Movie About a Family That Couldn't Have a Baby and Another Girl Had It for Them
She'south Her Own Twin
Aug. fifteen, 2006 — -- Lydia Fairchild was a proud mother who faced the most unusual of challenges. She had to fight in court to prove the children born from her body were her own.
"I knew that I carried them, and I knew that I delivered them. There was no doubt in my mind," Fairchild said.
Fairchild'due south fight for her kids began when she was 26-years-quondam, unemployed and applying for public aid in Washington state. Everyone in her family had to be tested to testify they were all related.
The Section of Social Services called Fairchild and told her to come in immediately. What Fairchild thought was a routine coming together with a social worker turned into an interrogation. The proud mother was suddenly a criminal suspect.
There Must Be an Explanation
"As I sat down, they came up and shut the door, and they just went back and just started drilling me with questions like, 'Who are y'all?'" Fairchild said.
The Deoxyribonucleic acid test results challenged everything she knew about her family. Yes, her boyfriend was the male parent of the children, and, yeah, they were all related, according to the Deoxyribonucleic acid, except for Fairchild. She was told she wasn't the mother.
Fairchild was certain a mistake must have been made, but she recalled a social worker saying to her, "Nope. DNA is 100 per centum foolproof and it doesn't lie."
Fairchild was non only denied government assistance for her young children, she was now suspected of possibly acting as a paid surrogate mother and committing welfare fraud. She was in danger of having her kids taken abroad for practiced.
Fairchild said before she left, the social worker told her, "You know, nosotros're able to come get your kids at any time."
Fairchild began to panic. She knew they were her kids. So she rushed habitation to search for photos of her pregnancy and institute her children'due south nascency certificates. She told her parents, who couldn't believe the test results.
"I idea she was joking merely and then she started crying on the telephone. I said 'Oh, information technology'due south got to be a error. I was there when the kids were born. I saw them come out. I held them in my arms, y'all know,'" said Fairchild's mother, Carol Fairchild.
"I almost went insane inside. I couldn't imagine why if this could happen, my daughter is non a liar," said Fairchild's begetter, Rod Fairchild.
Fairchild called her obstetrician, Dr. Leonard Dreisbach. He was in that location for all the births and bodacious Fairchild he'd vouch for her in courtroom.
"I would have told them that she certainly had these three kids, and that they were hers, and that I don't know what'due south wrong with the Deoxyribonucleic acid testing, but I know that she had the kids," Dreisbach said.
Only none of that seemed to thing, because Dna tests were considered infallible -- the gold standard in courtroom. Dna showed that Fairchild's genetic makeup did not match that of her children.
To eliminate any chance of human error, new DNA tests were ordered from different labs. It was an disturbing expect, but the results were the same: The children weren't hers.
Fairchild knew so that she was close to losing her kids. Later three court hearings, she said the judge looked at her and told her to find a lawyer.
Battling in Court
Information technology was some other uphill boxing in the courtrooms. Most of the attorneys Fairchild turned to were not willing to fight Dna testify.
Attorney Alan Tindell finally agreed to take the case, but he questioned her extensively most her connexion to the children. "These aren't your sister'southward children? These aren't your brother's children? You didn't abduct these children from anyone?" Tindell said that given how adamant Fairchild'southward answers were, he decided to believe her.
But Fairchild and her family remained frightened, fearing a knock at the door at whatsoever moment. So they made plans to hide the children from authorities.
"Getting that summons in the mail to go to courtroom, that they were trying to take my kids from me, my tum merely went into a big erstwhile knot. I merely started crying, and I chosen my family, and I held my kids and was scared," Fairchild said.
"I'd sit down and accept dinner with my kids and merely break out crying. They would but look at me similar, 'What'south wrong, Mom.' They'd come become me a hug, and I couldn't explain it to them, because I didn't understand," Fairchild explained.
Fairchild was in a tough spot, up confronting a government that idea she was at the very least a fraud, with foolproof scientific evidence weighing against her.
But and then she got a break. Across the land, at that place was some other woman with Deoxyribonucleic acid that didn't match her children's, but in this instance, the doctors had croaky the medical mystery.
Another Woman, Same Story
In Boston Karen Keegan had received a chilling phone call from her physician. It came during a very difficult time in her life, just as she needed a kidney transplant.
Keegan recalled what the doctor said to her: "Mrs. Keegan, we take some unusual news to report to you. We've never had this happen before, just your children don't match your DNA." That revelation came after her family unit members had had their blood tested for compatibility.
"Any child from a mom and dad should inherit genes from both the mom and the dad. In Keegan's instance, it appeared that her two boys hadn't inherited any of her Dna," said Dr. Lynne Uhl, a pathologist and doctor of transfusion medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. "They weren't hers. So we scratched our heads and said, 'This is really unusual. How tin can this be?'"
Boston doctors asked Keegan the same type of questions that had been asked of Fairchild in Washington They asked Keegan where her two sons had come up from, since their genetic lawmaking was not the aforementioned as hers.
"They wanted to know the name of the hospital where my children were born. They had some other thoughts, like perhaps this was some kind of in vitro fertilization or even worse, that this woman just might not be completely telling the truth or even exist psychologically unbalanced in some way," Keegan said.
Keegan's doctors investigated the instance further.
"It was a medical mystery. Certainly in that location were individuals whom we ran the story by who said, 'In that location must be a skeleton in the cupboard," Uhl said.
Doctors took DNA samples from all over Keegan'southward body. They tested her blood, her hair and swabbed her rima oris. Notwithstanding nothing matched her sons' Deoxyribonucleic acid. Just Keegan had another idea.
Keegan told Uhl that she'd had a thyroid nodule removed a while back.
Afterwards an all-encompassing search, doctors found a sample of her thyroid tissue saved in a nearby lab in the Boston surface area. Co-ordinate to Uhl, this piece of tissue was the key to solving the medical mystery.
The DNA that would match her sons' DNA could take been anywhere in Keegan'due south trunk. But her thyroid was where she matched her sons' genetic code.
The mystery was solved. In a way, Keegan was her own twin.
"In her blood, she was i person, but in other tissues, she had evidence of being a fusion of 2 individuals," Uhl said.
Information technology'due south a rare condition chosen chimerism, with only xxx documented cases worldwide. In Greek mythology, "chimera" means a monster: office goat, function lion, role serpent.
In homo biological science, a bubble is an organism with at least 2 genetically distinct types of cells -- or, in other words, someone meant to exist a twin. Merely while in the female parent's womb, two fertilized eggs fuse, becoming one fetus that carries two distinct genetic codes -- ii divide strands of DNA.
The twin is invisible, merely for chimeras the twin lives microscopically inside the body as Deoxyribonucleic acid.
When Uhl told Keegan she was her own twin, Keegan said she was shocked. "Yous wouldn't imagine that that could even be possible."
Still Fighting to Keep Children
But what did this new discovery mean for Lydia Fairchild, the adult female living beyond the country who'd been fighting to keep her children?
The state was still and so suspicious of Fairchild that when she gave birth to another child, a court officer stood in the delivery room to witness an firsthand Dna test.
"They took DNA from the baby and myself right then and there, afterwards birth, and it came dorsum that in that location is no mode possible that babe is mine," Fairchild said.
Even though they'd witnessed the birth, officials believed she was acting as a surrogate, possibly bearing a child for money.
Fairchild's attorney was determined to solve the mystery. That'south when he came across Keegan's chimera story in the New England Journal of Medicine.
"I asked the judge to postpone the case until these tests could be done," Tindell said.
Later on the tests were done, in that location was proof that Fairchild was her own twin as well. The estimate finally believed Fairchild was the biological mother of her children and dismissed the example.
"I probably wouldn't take my kids today if they didn't discover her situation. They wouldn't accept known to even consider me every bit a chimera," Fairchild said.
If non for Keegan, Fairchild said she might take lost her family unit forever.
Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/shes-twin/story?id=2315693
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