[Mr.Goodbar]

Babies switched at birth: families win cash payout



A court has awarded two Russian families $US100,000 ($93,600) each in compensation from a maternity home that accidentally switched their daughters at birth.

The families may use the money to house the girls, now 12, next to each other.

The story has captivated Russia ever since the families learned about the switch several months ago.
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During divorce proceedings, one man refused to support his daughter Irina - who has dark hair, dark eyes and olive skin - because she didn't look like him.

A DNA test then revealed neither he nor the mother, Yuliya Belyaeva, were Irina's biological parents.

An official investigation then tracked down Irina's biological father, Naimat Iskanderov, who had been raising Belyaeva's child, Anna, in a neighbouring town.

Belyaeva said the news still makes her shiver.

"It is very unpleasant to relive those memories," she said. "We still can't fully comprehend what happened."

In video broadcast on Russia's NTV television, Belyaeva laughed with joy on Monday after the judge delivered the verdict in a courtroom in Kopeisk, an industrial town of 140,000 in Russia's Ural Mountains, but Iskanderov remained stone-faced.

Fair-skinned Anna strongly resembles her biological mother, Belyaeva, while Irina looks like her father, Iskanderov, an ethnic Tajik born in the Central Asian and mostly Muslim ex-Soviet state of Tajikistan.

The video showed Belyaeva caressing Anna, while Irina, whom she raised, sat stern-faced with her eyes downcast.

"She feels jealous," Belyaeva said in televised remarks.

Belyaeva married again after separating from her husband and gave birth to two more children.

Iskanderov parted with his wife when Anna was five but later married again, according to the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

Despite the verdict, Belyaeva said the swap will leave lasting emotional scars.

"The money just can't ease the pain," Belyaeva said. "All the money in the world isn't worth a child's look at mother ... there are moments when I think it would have been better if I hadn't known anything about that."

Russian television reports said the girls don't want to leave the parents who raised them, so the families were thinking of using the compensation money, which is huge by Russian standards, to live near each other or even share a home.

"I would like us to share a house so that we don't worry about her daughter coming to me and the other way round," Iskanderov said on television.

Belyaeva said she would prefer separate houses nearby, so that "we see our children growing up and take part in their education".

Belyaeva also identified the nurse who she claimed mixed up the babies, but the nurse denied any responsibility.

"I know it was not me who did it," nurse Nelly Prokopyeva told Russian television.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/babies-s...101-1msq0.html

[kellyhound]

A DNA test then revealed neither he nor the mother, Yuliya Belyaeva, were Irina's biological parents.

hilarious.

[nastyg]

It reminds me of a friend of mine whos girl was pregnant and he was so excited stopped partying and all, the when the baby came out it was half black. Thats 1 of the funniest things Ive ever had the pleasure to be around. But I felt bad for her cuz he beat her in the hospital in the delivery room.

[Faline]

Originally Posted by nastyg ↗

It reminds me of a friend of mine whos girl was pregnant and he was so excited stopped partying and all, the when the baby came out it was half black. Thats 1 of the funniest things Ive ever had the pleasure to be around. But I felt bad for her cuz he beat her in the hospital in the delivery room.

Did they have a dna?
White parents can still have a half black baby if there is a black descendant in the family, even if it is far down the line it can occur.

[Mr.Goodbar]

Strange shit happens. You can get one white one and one black one. Check out these sisters:

[nastyg]

Kelly,thanks for the intell, I did not know that. But she blamed him for sending her out for drugs and thats how she claims it wasnt his. Admitting you slept with the dealer is as good as a dna test. But that was years ago idk if them people are alive, probably not. Im glad I made a u-turn from that life

[Route66]

That must be wierd to say nothing about screwed up. Now you are all of a sudden related to people that you might not even like. You can't just tell the kids to say goodbye to people that were Mom & Dad for ten years. The whole situation must be heartbreaking.

[LadyPox]

If one had really strict parents, I bet she's pissed!