Lydia Fairchild was having money problems and needed to apply government assistance. One of the conditions was that she and her husband take a DNA test to prove that they were the children’s biological parents.
What if you discovered one day that you are not connected to any of your biological children?
It was a nightmare that no one could imagine, but a mother in Washington State came dangerously close to going to jail and losing her children when she became involved in this complex case.
Lydia Fairchild was pondering her DNA findings from 2006. It was slowly eating her sense of reality since the results were indicating things she couldn’t believe. Lydia Fairchild’s DNA was diferent from her children DNA’s
“I knew I was carrying them and I knew I was gave life them.” Fairchild told ABC News, “There was no other trouth in my mind.”
When Fairchild requested for financial aid from the state, the mystery began.
She had to show that the children were all hers as part of the agreement, so they took the DNA test.
When the social services requested her to meet with them, she assumed it was just another bureaucratic formality. Suddenly she found herself in the center of a criminal investigation.
“They came up and locked the door and then they started drilling me with questions like, ‘Who are you?'” Fairchild stated to the news source.
She maintained that the children were hers, but the evidence against her was undeniable.
It felt like I was living in a horror. Social services stated they may take her children at any time, but she knew they were hers!
They were born from her. She has photos of them as children in her arms.
She contacted her gynecologist, Dr. Dreisbach, who had been present for all of her births. He agreed to testify in her defense in court, but there’s no lawyer who was ready to take her case. Especially since the case’s other DNA tests came back with the same result.
And suddenly a mother from another state stepped up with some interesting information.
Karen Keegan needed a kidney transplant in Boston. They did DNA testing in the hopes that one of her sons could be a match.
What she expected was a normal check which was turned out to be shocking and bizarre.
Her medics were confused because none of her children shared her DNA.
In particular one aspect of her was crucial.
Her thyroid nodule’s DNA matched that of her children.
A part of her proved that she is connected to her children. But how?
Fairchild and Keegan were almost identical twins.
It’s a medical condition known as “chimerism.”
When two eggs are fertilized, one of them will occasionally absorb the other. Even if the eggs were fused, the resultant union would still have two genetic codes.
Attorney Tindell, Fairchild’s lawyer, read about the case in the New England Journal of Medicine. Then he requested that the court allow Fairchild undergo the same testing.
Fairchild was finally proven to be their biological mother.
Same story, different women. Everything was vital.
“If they hadn’t found her issue, I probably wouldn’t have my kids today.” They would have seen me as a chimera,” Fairchild said.
They may have solved the Fairchild case, but chimerism still need to be solved.