What if you found out that your kids aren’t your own? Sounds bizarre, right? However, this happened to one mother whose request for child support became a lengthy court battle only because her DNA didn’t match her children’s.

It started with a request

Lydia Fairchild is like any mother who would want only the best for her children. She then had two sons and was pregnant with her third baby with her on-and-off partner. She was only 26 years old then, unemployed, and worried she wouldn’t be able to support her children.

She applied for the state’s public assistance in Washington. As protocol, all family members, including the children, had to undergo a DNA test to ensure that they were indeed related and that the children were not used as cash cows.

Lydia and her family went through that process. The day came that the results were out, and it wasn’t something they expected.

Unmatched DNAs

She got a call from the Department of Social Services, asking her to come in immediately. She was confused about why they couldn’t just tell her the result over the phone. They insisted that she needed to come for some important matters.

What should be a routine meeting ended up as an interrogation when they found out that her sons’ DNA did not match Lydia’s. She suddenly became a criminal suspect.

“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 you?'” Fairchild told ABC News.

She sat there baffled by what was going on. She insisted that she was their mother, and she gave birth to them. However, they wouldn’t accept any other evidence from Lydia. Not even the birth certificate or testimony from those who witnessed her giving birth to those children could overturn the DNA test result.

The fear of losing her children

Lydia did not only lose child support, but she could lose her children, too. The social worker told her that they could come and get her children at any time if she could not disprove or explain the DNA test result.

To make matters worse, the court asked her to get a lawyer, but no one wanted to represent her because the DNA test was strong proof, and they couldn’t possibly disprove that. Luckily, one lawyer believed in Lydia and stuck by her side.

Proof and evidence

Attorney Alan Tindell decided to take Lydia’s case. He went through the same interrogation, but hearing her answers gave him the feeling that she was telling the truth; they just had to look for an explanation.

And they found proof and evidence that would help Lydia’s case all the way to Boston. A recently published study about Karen Keegan and the condition called Chimerism. Atty. Tindell thought this was the key to winning Lydia’s case.

A rare case of Chimerism

Simply put, Chimerism is when another unique DNA strand is found somewhere else in your body and could be in any body part. This happens when two fertilized eggs (meant to be twins) develop into one embryo. In that case, your twin is inside you; you are your own twin.

Is this why Lydia’s sons share none of her DNA? Could they have had the DNA of her supposed “twin”?

Learn more about Lydia’s case and Chimerism by watching the video below.

Source: Real Families YouTube Channel, ABC News