Kyle Bylin and Jeremy Morrison were two only babies born at Unity Medical Center in Grafton, North Dakota, on January 26, 1988.
But somehow they went home with the wrong parents.
The truth of who they are is only revealed decades later when Kyle takes a random DNA test from a bag he received during a Christmas gift exchange.
They are now suing Unity, saying they have been robbed of the life they were meant to lead.
Kyle, born Jeremy Morrison, still has the hospital bracelet that mistakenly identifies him as Kyle Bylin.
The mix-up was discovered two years ago when he took a DNA test at home.
She led him to his biological aunt on a genealogy platform.
When her nephew Jeremy then had his DNA tested, the truth was confirmed.
“That’s when my mind was completely blown,” Kyle said.
“We could never have imagined that a real birth change took place.
Jeremy said he was convinced as soon as he saw a picture of Kyle’s brother and noticed the close similarities in their looks.
Evelyn Newton, who raised Kyle as her own, told The Associated Press: “Kyle is still my son — that’s never going to change.
“But I feel robbed of the life I should have had with my biological son.
“You can’t go back and replace 35 years. First steps, driving a car, getting married — how do you make up for that?’
The hospital does not dispute that the two babies were switched at some point.
He says he is working to better understand what happened, but has uncovered no evidence that the administration or its staff were responsible for the life-changing mistake.
“We recognize the profound impact this discovery has had on them and their families,” Unity Medical said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, due to the passage of almost four decades, medical and staffing records that would have provided additional clarity no longer exist and no member of the delivery team from that time is still employed at the hospital.”
The knowledge hasn’t changed how Jeremy feels about the family he’s always known.
He still thinks of the parents he grew up with – Elizabeth O’Toole and Terry Morrison – as his parents.
And apart from some challenging times – like wishing he had a sibling to lean on when they divorced when he was seven – he says his childhood was good.
‘I was in love. I played sports. I did well school” Jeremy said. “A DNA test won’t take away 38 years of memories.”
He now lives in Colorado, Colorado, and works as a welding inspector for a wind energy company.
If he hadn’t been switched at birth, he thinks he’d still be with his biological father and brother, working on the grain farm in North Dakota where Kyle grew up.
Ms Newton said she never considered that Kyle might not be their biological son while she and her then-husband, Keith Bylin, were raising him.
True, the immediate family had light hair, and Kyle’s was dark.
But her husband had dark-haired relatives, and Mrs. Newton herself was adopted, so she didn’t know what her blood relatives looked like.
For Kyle, questions about nature versus nurture have become more personal.
As he pursued an academic career away from North Dakota, he thought political debates over Thanksgiving dinner were just a staple of American family life.
‘You’re just shaking your fist, how can this be my family? How am I so different from them?’ Kyle said.
“Turns out we’re completely different people, period.”
Kyle and Jeremy have now met their biological parents — the meetings were welcoming but awkward, they said.
They haven’t met each other yet, but they’ve talked about it telephony.
“We’ve been trying to come together as a group and just understand that no matter what, there are different ways that this can be socially messy,” Kyle said.
“Everybody is getting to know people they didn’t know before.”
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