The Gift: Switched - BBC Radio 4
Some gifts just keep on giving, and this series on the cans of worms opened when people receive the gift of a DNA test can be astonishing.
The Gift would cause me to swear off sending my spit anywhere for closer analysis.
But it is a powerful listen. This is a second series of The Gift – in the first Jenny Kleeman looked at the secrets and extraordinary truths that appear when people take at-home DNA tests.
Now she has gone deeper to explore the fall-out when those truths are revealed. These can lead to both the reconnection and the rupture of families.
Switched is the story of how two babies got switched at birth – the first documented case in NHS history.
Read more: Why I decided to DNA test my dog and what I discovered - Sophie Clarke
Tony – he has two brothers and a sister known as Jessica (not her real name) - did a test and, far away, a stranger called Claire (for the sake of the programme) also did a test.
He messaged Claire as his test had revealed a sibling link and discovered that Jessica and Claire had been born at about the same time in the same hospital.
The tests revealed that the two baby girls must have got switched at birth.
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So far, so devastating – the knowledge sent shockwaves through two families.
Claire’s life had been difficult growing up.
She had experienced poverty and homelessness and she said she never felt she quite fitted in.
But within five days of finding out about the switch, she met her biological mother, Joan, and brother, Tony.
Just seeing that she had her eyes was a kind of coming home for Claire: it felt like they had always known each other.
“Oh my god, I’ve got your eyes… oh my god, I look like someone,” she said.
But there are two families here and there is another woman called Jessica.
What must it be like to have your world pulled from under your feet, to discover that your mother is not your birth mother and your brother not your actual brother either?
Jessica did not want to take part in the programme.
Her mother, Joan, said she would always be her daughter.
This is an emotional rollercoaster ride of a series that swoops between joy and moments of silent devastation.
The programme makers contacted NHS Resolution who said the baby swap was an “appalling error” for which it had accepted legal liability. But the women are still waiting for their case to be settled.
