Mom Whose Daughter Never Fit In Learns The Startling Truth 39 Years Later

When a new baby arrives in a family, it’s normal to expect a little bit of a learning curve. Even experienced parents know that an infant brings a whole new set of particular needs and wants. Some people have more needs than others, even from birth. There are newborns who are quiet and content, and then there are those who seem to always be crying unless they’re being held.

When one woman in Moldova brought her new daughter home, the baby seemed miserable, and the mother suspected that this was more than a simple case of colic. What followed was a story that took almost 40 years to unfold, and when it did, everyone involved was shocked beyond belief.

In March of 1978, Vera and her husband Nikolay welcomed a new baby into the world, a daughter whom they named Tatiana. It should have been the happiest time of their lives, but for Vera, something just felt off. It was something she couldn’t explain. All babies have their growing pains, but Tatiana seemed absolutely miserable as an infant. She cried non-stop, and when Vera fed her daughter, the child would struggle and fight against her.

Vera hoped this was something that would pass, but it didn’t pass. As Tatiana grew up, she continued being difficult, moody, and hard to control. However, what Vera didn’t know was that Tatiana actually had a pretty disturbing reason for behaving this way in the first place. Vera’s family and neighbors had always whispered about the little girl, and now Tatyana was getting old enough that she could start to piece together some of the rumors.

What her family believed was something Vera refused to accept. Here are Vera, her husband Nikolai, and their children, including baby Tatyana. The rumor was that Tatyana wasn’t actually Vera’s daughter. Instead, whispers swirled that Tatiana and another baby had been switched at birth. It was so far-fetched that Vera and Nikolai initially refused to believe such a major blunder could have been made.

In 1999, Vera and her family were preparing to leave their native Moldova to start new lives in the United States. That’s when a neighbor with very important information finally decided that she had to speak up and say something. The neighbor told a story about another infant born the same time as Tatyana who always cried as an infant and who suffered from the same problems when it came to eating. The uncanny similarity was enough to make Vera and Nikolai’s ears perk up.

“She knew us,” Nikolai said of the neighbor in a November 2017 interview with Inside Edition. “She knew the other family, and she knew that both kids were having problems after the hospital.”

Nikolay added, “As they grew up, I guess she could tell that the other kid looked a lot like our family and that the kid we had looked like their family.”

Vera and Nikolai weren’t able to find the other family prior to their move from Moldova to the United States. However, when they visited their home country, they made it a point to search everywhere for potential answers. Here are Vera, Nikolay, and their four children on a visit back to Moldova; Tatiana is the second from the right.

In August 2017, there was a major breakthrough using social media. Tatyana, now in her 30s, and her sister Victoria learned that the name of the other child from the neighbor’s story was Valentina Sumon. Tatiana even found Valentina online. Tatiana and Valentina connected, and they confirmed what they already suspected: they were born on the same day in the same hospital. They also exchanged photographs, and Tatiana couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Valentina looked just like her parents.

Here’s a picture of Valentina. The resemblance to Tatiana’s family members is striking. Vera’s son Anatoly still vividly remembers the moment the discovery was made.

“My mom asked me to come over. She opened a laptop with two baby photos and pointed at one, asking me to tell her who it was. I told her it was Victoria, my younger sister. It looked just like her,” Anatoly recalled.

The picture, however, was one of Valentina as a baby. Here Anatoly poses with his biological sister Victoria; see how much she looked like Valentina.

“We knew in our hearts that Valentina was our sister. Based on the pictures, she looked exactly like my younger sister,” added Anatoly.

But there was only one way for the family to confirm what they all believed to be true. Another photo of sister Victoria really made it clear just how much Valentina looked like the family. In October of 2017, both families were invited to appear on a Russian TV show to share their story. While there, they would also undergo a DNA test to confirm what they already suspected to be the truth.

Tatiana and Valentina meet for the first time in the photo below. The results surprised no one.

“It was the first time we had the opportunity to see our birth sister Valentina and hug each other, cried together,” Anatoly said. “Also that day was the first time my sister Tatiana had the opportunity to hug and cry with her birth family.”

So what happened the day the girls were born? On March 27th, 1978, their mothers were sharing a hospital room. The two little girls were taken away to be bathed, and when they were returned, they were accidentally swapped, and no one noticed. Left to right are Tatiana, Victoria, Valentina, and Anatoly.

Since reuniting with her birth parents, Vera and Nikolai, Valentina has become an integral part of the family. Her 16-year-old daughter would see her grandparents often, and Valentina even became a surrogate mother to one of her new nephews. Here Valentina sits between her birth parents.

Amazingly, neither of the families had any plans to sue the hospital for this colossal blunder. In fact, they were simply overjoyed that everything was corrected and that the girls had not one, but two families. Here Victoria, Anatoly, Valentina, their older brother, and Vera pose for a picture.

In fact, Anatoly and his newly discovered sister had grown so close that he currently put plans in motion to help her move from Moldova to the United States so she could be closer to her biological family. Anatoly’s relationship with Tatyana hadn’t changed at all either. She was still his sister as far as he was concerned.

“I talked to her and I told her that nothing changes between us. The only difference is that I gained a sister. We are brother and sister,” he added touchingly. “We love her and nothing is ever going to change that.”

This is such an amazing story. It definitely sends chills down the spine of anyone who’s ever wondered if maybe something like this could happen to them.