Woman has 2 bodies in 1

Lydia Fairchild gave birth 3 times. When she applied for a monthly allowance to raise her child, she died when the court declared her boyfriend her father. And she, who gave birth to them, is not her mother, because her DNA does not coincide with them.

Lydia and the children.
(Photo: ABCnews)

Lydia Fairchild will remember that day forever. The court staff called out to her suspiciously: "Who are you? What are you plotting with the children?" Surprised, Lydia answered, "they are my children, why is there a plot here?" . The person replied coldly: "They are not your children. We have DNA tests. Do not think that you are out of law. Your DNA and the children are not the same."

From the court back, Lydia seemed to be going crazy. Apparently she was the mother of three children. She was pregnant and gave birth normally. All family members, neighbors and doctors at the maternity home know. Even her boyfriend's DNA, her father's DNA, is also consistent with the DNA of all three of them. But all those are meaningless in court. Medical theory has confirmed that mother and child DNA must be similar. 100% of cases are like that. The opposite can only be fake.

Doubting that the trial of the court was flawed, Lydia asked for a repeat in some independent laboratories. The results are still the same. Her boyfriend is the father of the children. And she, who gave birth to them, is not her mother. From just wanting to apply for a monthly social allowance to raise children, Lydia faces a terrible risk: She could be accused of falsifying and abusing children, even kidnapping children. In that case, the children will be taken to the social protection center and Lydia will never see her children again. In that gloomy moment, a glimmer of hope flashed. Lydia happened to believe another woman at the other end of the US had the same situation.

It was Karen Keegan, a 52-year-old mother with two sons in Boston. Testing before Karen's kidney transplant also showed that her DNA and children were not the same. The doctor there, despite knowing that there was no fake, could not explain what had happened.

The doctors learned more about Karen's thyroid, and the mystery was solved. Karen Keegan encountered a rare problem in medicine called chimerism (in the Greek legend, chimera refers to a monster halfway between and half, such as a lion's head). Worldwide, only about 30 such cases are recorded. In fact it is the case that two twin individuals exist in one body.

The reason is that two eggs have been fertilized together, but when in the womb, they should develop into two twins, they "mix" together and become a single perfect fetus, but There are two different genetic codes - two different DNA sequences. In other words, Karen is two people in one body and that cannot be observed with the naked eye but can only be detected if genetic material is tested. That's why DNA around her body is different from her DNA, but her thyroid DNA is the same.

Karen's story prompted Lydia to convince the judge to give her more time. Finally, after a series of tests, the doctor concluded that Lydia was also a case of chimerism. The case file is closed with a happy ending: Lydia is recognized as the mother of her children and receives monthly benefits. Each time she remembered the past, Lydia silently thanked Karen: "Without her, I lost my child."