30 Doctors And Nurses Spill The Tea About What Happens When The Baby Looks Like Not The Dad’s
Interview
Learning that your partner cheated on you can hurt you immensely. But realizing that this happened right after they give birth can be beyond devastating. It’s not just awkward for the couple, though—the medical staff have to witness all of the drama that goes down, too.
Internet user u/NoTalentAzKlown sparked a massively viral discussion on r/AskReddit. A number of doctors and nurses shared what it was like in the delivery room after they helped deliver babies whose biological fathers were clearly not the moms’ partners. Read on for some of their experiences.
Bored Panda got in touch with the author of the popular thread, u/NoTalentAzKlown, and they were kind enough to answer our questions. You'll find our interview with the OP as you scroll down.
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I have a white friend who is a Superman of a dad. When his third child was born, she was obviously of mixed race. His white wife had an affair with a black man. The wife also had substance abuse issues before this pregnancy and was no longer dependable or stable as a mother. So my friend immediately divorced her and took custody of the kids. ALL of them. He's been raising his two bio kids and the third child who isn't technically his for the past decade. She's his princess and he loves her exactly like the other two.
Edited to answer a couple of questions: he is a straight man who has not remarried. He's done this all on his own, dated here and there, but nothing serious yet. He's too busy with three kids, full time career, and a small business to run.
Also, bio dad to the third child waived his rights immediately when he found out about her birth. He was mom's dealer and their fling was a one time thing that resulted in pregnancy. He had zero interest in fatherhood.
Edited again to add: some people say how they could never raise another man's child, especially one that was a product of adultery, but you have to consider that my friend went through the entire pregnancy preparing for this baby that he thought was his. So he bought the baby gear, painted a nursery, went to the Dr appointments, etc. He was heavily invested in this baby before she was ever born, he already loved her and felt she was his, so it wasn't a big leap for him to take her on as his own.
We asked the author what couples could potentially do to move past one of them having been unfaithful. "I don't really know how you recover from a situation involving infidelity when a child is born," u/NoTalentAzKlown opened up to Bored Panda.
"It's a betrayal of trust and the child would be a constant reminder of that betrayal. But, every situation is different and I'm sure it's not navigated without a ton of communication and time to rebuild trust."
They added: "But, I would find it hard to believe it wouldn't linger in the relationship."
Not an lnd nurse, but my wife is and I hear /everything/
A woman was delivering her white ex husband's baby with her new black boyfriend beside her and after the baby came out and had his foot stamped with the ink pad, the boyfriend pointed to the black foot and said "awww.. He's got my feet!"
I guess it's off topic but I lold when she told me.
That's actually kind of sweet. At least the new boyfriend was supportive.
Not a doctor, but I've got a pretty relevant story about my parents.
My mum was pregnant before she met my dad, but only for a month before she met him. She had decided to give the child to a couple who were close family friends who couldn't have kids, and then told my dad. He handled it pretty well, since she wasn't asking him to be a father, just emotional support, and in his words, he already knew that he found the woman he wanted to be with for the rest of his life. However, back in those days in my country it was still looked down upon to have a child while you were single/out of wedlock, so my dad told everyone the baby was his, and that they were planning on getting married. Saved face for mum, and stopped rude people sharing their unwanted opinions about the situation.
Now, my parents are both white, but the biological father was a Pacific Islander. Mum did not see that as relevent to tell the midwife or anyone else except dad. It all went well until the birth. My mum gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, while dad waited outside the whole time. Straight after birth, mum was exhausted and went straight to sleep. However, the nurses see that the baby is clearly not white, like both my parents, and go to tell my dad that the baby had been born but he might be in for a little bit of a shock. Apparently they looked so sorry for dad, thinking this poor sucker had been cheated on and lied to. When they told him that 'his' little girl was probably not his, he burst out laughing and just said "i know". Poor nurses got such a shock, couldn't make sense of the situation, and just walked away while dad sat their giggling to himself. He's a strange guy my dad, but a great one. After telling me that story, he said he always knew his mum was his soul mate, and going through that helped him realise that mum was the one for him. When mum told me that story, she said exactly the same thing. 33 years later and they're still going strong.
Bored Panda was interested in getting u/NoTalentAzKlown's take on what the doctors and nurses might do to ease the tensions in the delivery room if the parents start arguing.
"The medical staff already has plenty of responsibilities so I would not want to place the burden on them," they shared their perspective. However, there are some steps that hospitals could take that might potentially de-escalate these sorts of situations.
"If they don't already, they could potentially have a counselor on-call for these kinds of situations. Or, a divorce lawyer. I'm sure most of those situations don't end well."
I know a guy who is fully white, his parents are both white and his younger sister is black. I always assumed she was adopted and one day when I mentioned it, he looked at me weirdly and was like no dude that’s my full blood sister...
Obviously I didn’t believe it, and apparently neither did his dad at the birth. But they got the paternity test and she was his daughter - likelihood is they’ve got some black ancestors far enough back to be forgotten about.
I also know a dude who has a white Scottish mum, and a black Jamaican dad. Dude came out pale white with a ginger afro... genetics were not on his side.
Sometimes recessive ancient genes pop up. But also with mixed kids, there are plenty of cases where they get their physical genes from one side, there is that case with those twins in England, where one parent is black and one is white, one twin is obviously bi-racial and the other is a pale redhead (https://www.cnn.com/2015/03/03/living/feat-black-white-twins/index.html), and there is a youtuber who is a black woman with a white husband who all the time has to explain why her youngest is a white blonde and educate ignorant people on Genetics (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/px1FbtQQxgA). Genetics are weird like that.
We had a very sweet blond haired blue eyed mom and dad along with their entire extended family in the room for a delivery one busy afternoon at work (think aunts, Uncles, cousins, Grandma and Grandpa too). The baby is born and as the doctor places her on the mom’s chest the first words out of her mouth are “That’s not my baby! That’s not my baby!!”
The baby in question, still attached at the umbilical cord, has beautiful dark curly black hair, and dark skin. The nurse looks at her and tells her that this is definitely her baby because “she’s still attached to you” and she, not so quietly, tells the nurse “There’s no way, I never slept with a black man! It’s not mine!”
The “father” is standing there silent, not sure what to do. A long awkward silence fills the room.
We clean her and baby up as cheerfully as we can. We see the extended family filter out of the room and the “father” leave to get a cigarette. About ten minutes later a tall black guy walks up to our front desk asking how to get to the patient in question’s room.
Did you do a DNA test to make sure she was the mother of the baby though?
I'm of Irish decent. Extremely pale, freckled, wavy dark hair and darker green eyes. My husband is half Native American, half German. Dark, **dark** hair and slightly wavy as well... My daughter came out with light light brown curly hair and ever so slight strawberry blonde pieces mixed throughout... *curls for days*
and the nurse goes "wow, where did you get that hair?!"
Knowing I had similar colour as a baby and my mother has kinky curly hair, my husband, in a room full of nurses goes "I DON'T KNOW JADED, WHERE DID SHE GET THAT HAIR?!"
I could have f*****g killed him.
Edit: Please no one tell my husband how much traction this story got, it'll just make him conceited and the jokes will get worse. I already have a rough time finding him hats.
My mother is of mixed European descendance, pale with red hair and green eyes. My father is Tlingit, Native Alaskan. My older sister has light tan skin, dark hair and hazel eyes. My younger sister is a darker tan, with very dark brown eyes and almost black hair. I got my mother's mayonnaise complexion (but I tan very easily!), medium-dark hair with red shimmer, the high cheekbones and brown eyes of my father. Genetics!!!
According to u/NoTalentAzKlow, they were shocked that their thread went so viral on Reddit. "I posted it pretty late in the evening and had no expectations that anyone would respond," they said.
"I originally posted it while watching 'Me, Myself & Irene' because that situation happens to the character played by Jim Carrey."
In their opinion, the topic connected with such a large online audience because it's a "grab your popcorn" situation.
"People love drama when they're not directly involved," the author told us.
According to one study from 2014, infidelity rates amongst married couples in the United States range from 20% to 40%. In cases where people hid their infidelity from their partners, the likelihood of divorce was 80% compared to 43% of cases where the infidelity was revealed.
Meanwhile, the divorce rate for couples that did not cheat stood at 23%. Couples that stayed married, whether or not there was any infidelity, were found to have better relationship satisfaction over time.
New born had chlamydia, got it from the mom, obviously. So the mom admits she was cheating on the dad, because there’s no other way to explain that one. Except- the dad was cheating too, with the other guy’s girlfriend, and all 4 of them had chlamydia, with no idea who had it first. They also had no idea who the actual dad was. That was a rodeo.
All of these people need to learn how to use protection to prevent STDs. Poor baby.
Not a doctor, but someone in my extended family had a baby (two middle Eastern parents) that turned out to be dark-skinned. The father of the baby filed for divorce, even though the mother kept saying the baby was his. A few years later, they found out that the mother's great grandmother was African and that the baby obtained strong genes from her.
They didn't get back together, because too much had gone down at that point, but the mother was right all along.
Tldr; Two middle-easterns had dark-skinned baby, husband divorced but later it was found out that it was genetics.
When my baby was born people asked me if her father was Polynesian. Nope. He’s a skinny white man.
There was no doubt he was the father.
She was born with thick black hair, she was a big baby (4kg) and had jaundice which made her look VERY tan.
The hair fell out, the jaundice went away, she thinned out & I now have a strawberry blonde haired 2 year old that looks exactly like her papa.
But man, if I hadn’t known he was the only man I’d slept with I would have some serious doubts.
There’s no easy answer to why someone decides to cheat on their partner. It really depends on the individual: their relationship dynamics, their hangups, their insecurities, their values, and their expectations.
One person might be unfaithful because their physical or emotional needs aren’t met. Another might cheat because they lack confidence, want to feel attractive, or… they simply have the opportunity.
My aunt, who is white, is married to a black man. When their son was born, he was white with blonde hair. Dad was screaming and throwing a fit in the hospital. Doctor came in and turns out, their son is albino.
Had two women give birth a few days apart on my floor. Turns out they actually had the same baby daddy. The father of the two newborns got both patients pregnant around the same time. It was an interesting day for the social worker!
The Father of my first wife had 12 Children with two women, his first and second wife. The last Kid of the first and the first kid of the second came a day apart, both women spent the time in hospital in the same room. Must have been crazy awkward.
Had a patient who came in to ER for UTI with her boyfriend of 4 months (his words). She was 19. Acting extremely dramatic for just having UTI. We tell her we need urine. She urges us to cath her which is really unusual but she says she can’t pee so me and other nurse assume the position to put in a catheter with her lying on the gurney. At this point nurse screams, “call L&D!! She’s crowning!!”
L&D nurse gets in just in time to grab the child as it shoots out into her hands and is a living breathing baby.
The girl swears she had no idea she was pregnant. They wheel her off to postpartum and the guy is just kind of left standing there, dumbstruck.
“We only been dating 4 months. I had no idea she was pregnant. She never mentioned it at all.” As he just buried his head in his knees while he was sitting on the floor against the hallway wall.
I felt so bad for the guy.
It's possible that she didn't KNOWINGLY have sex. GHB, too much alcohol, etc.
Verywell Mind explains that some of the main reasons married folks cheat include anger, low self-esteem, a lack of commitment to or from their partner, and a lack of love. Some other factors include neglect, a need for variety, and sexual desire.
The individual might have some serious emotional baggage that leads to their low self-esteem. Or they might lack empathy and simply not care about the consequences of their actions.
Bit reversed, I’m mixed from a very dark black man and a Mexican woman on the lighter side barely passing. Well my dad and mom didn’t work out but I was made he ditched two weeks in and everything. She then got together with my step dad about two months later (looong time friends) and he knew she was pregnant.
Break the news of being pregnant to the family everyone is excited but no one knows it’s not the super white man’s child. So cut to my birth I come out clearly way to dark, not charcoal but something is missing on how. No one in that room knew but my mom, stepdad and grandparents.
I’m told it was a very awkward conversation. Skin color or not my stepdad has always claimed me as blood knowing full well I’m not and I couldn’t have lucked out harder.
A friend of mine (white guy) never knew who his father was got married and had a kid with a white girl. Kid came out black, he opted for a paternity test rather than walking away and it was indeed his son. So he took a genetics test (23andme or something like that) a couple years later and as it turns out he's half african.
Not a cheating story, but my sister's friend was born fair skin with red hair and green-hazel eye colored. Both parents are dark-skinned with black hair and brown eyes. When her mom gave birth, everyone in the room went silent. However, the father knew that his wife didn't cheat. Turned out, his wife great-great grandmother had red hair and fairs-skin. However, hospital protocol made both parents get a DNA test, and everything was okay.
So they don't accidentally receive the wrong baby back. It's already too common for accidental switchups, and there's been a HUGE clamoring for basic genetic testing at birth to prevent exactly that. So it's not really a surprise some hospitals are doing it now. And that's not even getting into situations where there's no named father.
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My mom is half Indonesian, dark hair, skin and eyes. My dad has dark brown hair and amber eyes. Out I come with bright red hair and green eyes. My dad always joked I was the milkman’s kid. ***Spoiler*** my dad delivered milk for a living. He WAS the milkman. His dad was a redhead with blue eyes.
My son is blonde with blue eyes. His father has brown hair and brown eyes. A great aunt of him had blue eyes. His sisters were blonde when they were young. Everybody laugh/feel embarrassed when they look at my son, then at us. I always say 'weird how genetics work'.
That's fair to make both parents get DNA. Should be obligatory always. Even though mother just pushed out the baby 😀🤦
I believe it is against using illegally donor egg or something.
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Based on her adult eye color, the baby would have been born with blue eyes. A great-great grandmother with fair skin is unlikely the only reason for the fair skin - both parents likely had a bunch of fair-skinned ancestors. Red hair is mostly recessive, as are green eyes, so, again, the father must have had red-headed and green-eyed ancestors as well.
Why would the mother have to get a DNA test? Outside of a surrogate situation, if they pulled the baby out of her, it's hers.
While it’s possible to overcome infidelity, it’s not an easy task. For one, your partner might not want to forgive you. On top of that, you might need to reach out to a couples counselor for assistance. Whatever the case might be, the first step is to stop the affair, stop lying about it, and take responsibility for your actions.
The important thing is not to blame anyone else for the affair and not to try to justify your actions. You’ll need to give your partner some time and space to come to terms with the truth. And you’ll need to get ready for a lot of open and honest conversations about the future.
Obligitory not a doctor/nurse. But both of my parents have blond hair. When I was born, my hair was strawberry blond. My paternal grandparents lost their s**t and accused my mom of cheating because red tinted hair didn't run in their family. However, it ran in my mom's family with a redhead popping up every now and then. My paternal grandparents didn't know that, they just really hated my mom so looked for excuses to drag her down.
It wasn't until I stopped looking like a potato (as most newborns do) and started looking like a person when my dad's family features came through enough to make them apologize to my mom.
My story isn't a cheating situation, but it looked like one. Both of my parents are Asians with black hair and black eyes, they also have darker skin compared to mine. I am the first of their kids and I have hazel eyes, brown hair and pale skin.
Nurses and doctors thought that my mom cheated and tried to convince my dad in that. Turns out both of my grandmothers are mixed and I got some genes from both of them.
As a nurse, if the nurses and doctors really tried to convince the dad that the mum cheated it's extremely unprofessional behavior and should have been reported. Even when it turns out to be true, it's still ethically wrong to meddle in the private life of patients like that (not to mention the fact that you can't know for sure whithout a DNA test).
Midwife from Australia here, craziest delivery I attended was a G17P15 (pregnant 17 times, 15 live children as a result of those pregnancies) and 3 different "dads" turned up over the short course of her labour with baby #15. They proceeded to have a fist fight about who was the "real" father and I had to call security to escort them out. Then followed with a call to child services.
My biology teacher went to high school with a woman who slept with her white boyfriend and went and slept with a black guy later that same day. She ended up with twins, each guy fathered one girl. One was white skinned and one was dark skinned. I think she came clean about it right away so it wasn’t a huge shock later.
Little different twist - I am Ukrainian. My great-grandfather was Crimean Tatar (who are mixed Turkic and Mongolian). My wife is Ukrainian and Italian. My first boy was blonde, my second was dark-haired, dark skinned, and has the classic almond-shaped Asiatic eyes. Mongolian Spot. Despite the fact that we know my family history, we ordered a test to make sure there was no "separation at birth" stuff (C-section). Yep, that's our boy. You would never know looking at us that that boy is genetically related to us. And we love him to pieces!
My brother had a surprise baby this way... he and a coworker had a one night stand while she was broken up with her ex. She gets back with her ex.. ends up pregnant flash forward to the delivery day... the day my brother sends me a picture of a random baby out of the blue and says "I think I am a dad".
She is white, her boyfriend is black my brother is white. Baby came out looking very very white.
I don't know how it went down in the hospital room... but I know they separated very soon after. My brother went to visit her in the hospital and asked her if she would let him take a paternity test. She agreed and it came back positive a week later.
And that's how I got my surprise nephew.
Edit to answer questions and clarify some things.
Everyone is fine. My brother took full responsibility from day one. They ended up dating🙄... having another child together and are now separated with full split custody (no courts involved).
I know how genetics work. I have a mixed sister and mixed children. My kids are Mexican/Puerto Rican and 11 kinds of European. They came out very brown and are now pasty white like me. One has brown eyes and one has green eyes. I DO understand everyone's experience may vary.
When I say "very very white" I mean it, he was practically translucent. The baby looked just like my brothers baby photos... and nothing at all like the boyfriend. We just kinda knew.. but still a test was the only way to know. Everyone in our family was surprised of course but we all embraced the situation with love and understanding.
I had a female patient come in with abdominal pain. Pregnancy test was positive. She was with her husband who, evidently, had a vasectomy about a year prior.
I slowly backed out of the room after that one..
Edit: i know it’s possible, just improbable.
Not exactly the situation you’re asking for, but Reddit loves a good crazy MIL story. My dad is blonde and my mom is brunette. I came out of the womb with fiery red hair. My dad’s mom made a huge fuss about my mom “cheating” on my dad and had to be escorted out of the hospital.
My grandmother’s own mother had flaming red hair, which she apparently forgot until my great-grandmother held me for the first time and said, “I always wanted a baby with my red hair.”
Edit: holy s**t, I woke up to A LOT of notifications. To clarify: I was very tired last night and did not phrase this well. My dad's mom accused my mom of cheating, forgetting that my dad's grandmother had red hair. She was in her 80s (late in life babies are actually common in my dad's family) and spent her entire life in rural Alabama and Mississippi, so she wasn't exactly a biologist or geneticist. Additionally, she was extremely mentally ill, and these delusional temper tantrums were not uncommon.
My brother married a half Korean, half white woman who had three girls to the same Mexican guy.
The first girl looks Latina. The second girl looks Pacific Islander. The third girl has platinum blonde hair and icey blue eyes. They look nothing alike, and yet if you look at their lineage it all makes sense.
I don’t know if this ever caused any issues between her and her ex, but I could understand if an eyebrow was raised in the third one.
Now she has a fourth girl with my brother and she looks nothing like the other three. Just standard brown hair brown eyed white girl.
I know this ain’t super relevant to the question but it always entertains me.
Ok story from a friend of my brothers. She worked as a nurse and a woman and her husband came in. They were both white, and she delivered a child that was black. The husband immediately starts saying wtf, while she is going on and on about dormant traits and everything.
He orders a DNA test. While this is going on her mother and Stepdad show up. The stepdad is black, after the testing is done, the DNA test ends up showing that the baby is the Stepdad's. Her husband instantly dropped her and cut ties.
Edit: In response to some comments. This didn't happen over the course of a couple of hours. Husband hung out (albeit reluctantly) until things were conclusive. Once testing showed it wasn't his baby, they tested the step dad. Probably suspected something, I wasn't there I don't know the deeper details.
Not a doctor, but my best friend's brother in law has two black parents and came out completely white. DNA test confirmed they were both his parents.
It just be like that sometimes.
Edit: I'm only guessing they tested the mother as well to rule out any possiblity of an accidental swap at the hospital. Lmao y'all savage.
Not a doctor or nurse.....but in undergrad I had a buddy (Caucasian) who’d been dating the same girl (also Caucasian) for awhile. She gets knocked up, he proposes. Fast forward a few months and both families are eagerly waiting at the hospital to meet the baby. The baby comes out black. Everyone is in shock. Girl is frantically trying to convince everyone that there’s been a misunderstanding. My buddy called off the engagement immediately, returned the ring, and never looked back.
Unless there was a DNA test, he may have walked away from his child. Hopefully, the mother asked for one from the boyfriend.
Not me, but this happened to my grandma. Seventy years ago in South Africa, my great grandparents (white f, black m) had four kids. They all looked mixed race, till the youngest, my Aunt Jan, was born with bright blonde hair, blue eyes and white skin. Great Grandfather immediately left, claiming their mother had cheated with a white man. The now five kids were adopted out and moved to England.
Last year, my grandma's daughter (my aunt) hired a genealogist just to discover they were all genetically related, great grandmother didn't cheat, and they spend their lives in orphanages for no reason. My aunt wrote a book about it. It's real good.
Book is here
The children may have been adopted out for a completely different reason (that link isn't taking me to the book, so I can't check further) mixed race relationships were actually illegal in South Africa in the 1950's - actually *criminal*. Terrible state of affairs all around but "cheating" would hardly be the worst thing for the couple to worry about.
A friend of mine tells the story of his aunt giving birth (in the 1970s or 80s) to a baby that at first glance appeared to be of Asian descent. Aunt and her husband are both caucasian midwesterners from long lines of the same sort, going back to Germany. There was evidently a shocked moment, and then the aunt's father, my friend's grandfather, quipped, "Well, they say 1 in 7 babies is born Chinese," and everyone laughed. The tension broke, long enough for the Doctor (also a white midwesterner of German stock) said that likely the kid's color is just off due to the events of the birth. That baby is now a man in his 30s or 40s, and looks like your typical midwesterner; he just had some tinge to his skin for a few hours following the birth, plus some dark hair at birth that has since lightened up.
No idea what the doctors thought, but I had a phone call from the wife asking for my blood type while they were in the hospital the next day (and I'd ducked home)
I'm A-. The wife is O-. Bub is A+
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
I've done enough science to know where that's going.
Have done DNA testing, I'm 100% the dad. Still not sure how to get more interesting science info about the myriad markers that apparently exist.
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Oh for crying out loud. Sometimes kids don't look like the dad but end up looking like the mom. Or they look like neither because they end up taking after a grandparents or great grandparent instead. Anything can happen with genetics. That does not mean it's not the father's biological child. 🙄
In this day, everyone should hold their horses until the DNA tests come in.
My daughter turns 18 soon and look exactly like me (poor thing). She wanted to do an ancestry dna test, which my wife and I had both done, because she was interested in here heritage. It had been a running joke that she wasn't my kid, but looks like a female clone (admittedly better looking thanks to her mom) of me. When it came back, she said "See! Here's proof you are my dad." I said the tests are sometimes flawed and that we needed a retest. She just rolled her eyes the way teens do. 🤣
Oh for crying out loud. Sometimes kids don't look like the dad but end up looking like the mom. Or they look like neither because they end up taking after a grandparents or great grandparent instead. Anything can happen with genetics. That does not mean it's not the father's biological child. 🙄
In this day, everyone should hold their horses until the DNA tests come in.
My daughter turns 18 soon and look exactly like me (poor thing). She wanted to do an ancestry dna test, which my wife and I had both done, because she was interested in here heritage. It had been a running joke that she wasn't my kid, but looks like a female clone (admittedly better looking thanks to her mom) of me. When it came back, she said "See! Here's proof you are my dad." I said the tests are sometimes flawed and that we needed a retest. She just rolled her eyes the way teens do. 🤣
