Shows like Jerry Springer and Maury are built on five legendary words: “You are NOT the father!” Anytime those words are said, the crowd goes wild, the couple starts to fight, and the credits roll. But what very few people get to witness are the events leading up to these revelations and the stunning fallouts afterward. These doctors, nurses, and bystanders were lucky enough to see them firsthand, and they’re here to reveal every juicy detail.
1. Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey
Lauren Lake's Paternity Court is incredible. My favorite case was one where the woman spent almost the entire 25 minutes going over all this "proof" that the kid was this guy’s kid. She used facial similarities and even brought in a witness to attest that she was of good character and wouldn’t cheat. She also tried insulting the guy, saying how awful it was that he denied his child.
Through all of this, the guy just stood there quietly; not saying a word, not defending himself, nothing. Finally, the judge asked if he has anything to say or if he would like to plead his case. He motioned to the only thing on the desk: A manila folder. The plaintiff took it to the judge, and she opened it. Its contents changed the whole case. She read it for a minute, then dismissed the case in the favor of the guy.
Turns out, he had been deployed overseas in Afghanistan during the year before, which was when the pregnancy and birth occurred. He came home after four years and was introduced to "his" two-year-old child.
2. The Past Is Present
My brother told me this story about a man he used to work with. My brother's work friend is from an eastern European country and he came to the US many, many moons ago to start his family. One of his sons met a nice girl and they planned to get married, but life happened and the girl got pregnant before they could plan something big together.
Regardless, the whole family was excited about the new baby. The father-to-be was absolutely ecstatic and they had a small ceremony just before the baby was born. When the delivery time came, out popped this little boy who was about 50 shades darker than either parent, and the new dad absolutely lost his mind. In his heartbroken rage, he accused his new bride of cheating on him, disowned the child, and raged right out of the delivery room, leaving the new mom all alone with her mountain of shame.
This guy returned to his family and continued his hate-filled rampage. He exclaimed to his family that his new wife had cheated on him because the baby looked nothing like him. The family was shocked, as they never would have believed this sweet young thing would do that to their son. It was absolute shame and misery all around. Well, sitting in a dark little corner of the room, little tiny grandma chirped up and had a story to tell.
Apparently, back in her glory days, during some conflict or another, she had a great summer fling with a French soldier. A Black French soldier. She got knocked up and due to the times, she had to keep the baby, hoping her family didn't throttle her before she could abandon it somewhere. She ended up meeting her husband shortly after getting knocked up, and things just progressed as if it was his child.
And wouldn't you know, the little thing popped out white as snow. She breathed a sigh of relief because that was going to be the easiest lie for her to keep, ever. So this poor guy had been carrying around this super melanin gene his whole life, knocked up his wife, and it decided to all come out on his sweet little boy. Thankfully, the whole family went with him to the hospital.
The grandma had a picture of her old fella as proof, and the husband and wife were reunited.
3. Oops Baby
I've never cheated on my husband, and after our second kid, he had a vasectomy. Cut to a year later—I discovered I was pregnant (and then subsequently lost the pregnancy). I began to freak out because I knew I hadn't done anything wrong, but I was scared everyone else would think I did. Turns out, my husband was embarrassed to do the whole cup thing at his doctor's, so he never did the sperm count test.
He still had a count and needed further "treatment". Scariest darned day of my life.
4. Chosen Family
My fiancé’s father is almost certainly not his biological dad. His mom was just a genuinely terrible human being who didn’t even try to hide the fact she was cheating. But his dad loved him from the second he was born, and when his mom decided four years later she just didn’t want him anymore, she just gave him to his "dad" and rode off. His dad ended up getting remarried and they tried for kids before finding out his sperm count was too low to ever father children (they ended up adopting many years later). He sat my fiancé down when he was 13 and told him the truth. The dad said that if he wanted to do a test they would, but it was up to him.
My fiancé cried and told him he just wanted him to be his dad, and that was the end of that.
5. Too Close For Comfort
I know a girl who was pregnant with her boyfriend's best friend's baby. He found out there was a possibility about a week before she gave birth. I went up to see her once the baby was born and he looked just like the friend, there was no question. I broke the news to her boyfriend and he was absolutely devastated. His parents were also heartbroken and super angry.
They had bought the girl everything she needed, including a $500 car seat and stroller set. She refused to give anything back. She started up a relationship with the friend immediately after having their child, and they're still together a decade later. There is a cruel twist, however. See, the boyfriend and best friend were next-door neighbors.
She moved into the friend’s house after coming home from the hospital, so her ex-boyfriend and his family had to see them basically every day, raising a child that they had believed to be his for the entire pregnancy. I can't even imagine.
6. It’s What’s Inside That Counts
I had a vasectomy. While chatting with the doctor, he told me about another patient he had. This guy had three kids and came in for the snip-snip because he and his wife decided they were done having children. The doctor opened up his sack…and found nothing to snip. This guy was born without the ability to have any children.
The poor doctor had to explain to him what happened. Imagine finding that out that way.
7. Double Trouble
I worked as a lab tech before I became a nurse. We had a set of twins in the NICU that arrived super early and the mom was still in the OR getting sewed up from the cesarean. I was drawing Baby B’s blood when the mom was wheeled over to Baby A’s isolette. She was crying and said, “Oh, thank the heavens you’re not Black! I have been so worried the last seven months".
Newborn babies, especially when they’re born early, are very pink; almost red, even. So if a baby was part-Black, their skin isn’t necessarily dark yet. But looking at the babies, I knew the truth. It was obvious they were going to be Black. The shape of the face, the texture of the hair...plus, Baby B had an intense Mongolian spot, which you generally see in African American babies.
A few weeks later, my NICU coworker told me that the babies were now on a “no-info status,” which indicated a security alert. We couldn’t give anyone information about them, refer to them by name, etc. She said there was a huge fight because the mom’s husband (who was a white guy) obviously noticed that the babies were half-Black and he accused the mom of cheating on him.
The real dad, a Black guy, came in and didn’t realize the mom was even married. Those poor babies.
8. Too Young To Love
I worked in labor and delivery. One day, we had a very young mother come in, accompanied by her parents. She was just 12 years old and the parents looked stuffy. They kept telling her she should've had an abortion and that she was too young to be a mother, etc. Her mother was silent for most of the time but leaked tears for her constantly. While she labored, I received a call from a very young boy who said he was her boyfriend.
Her father wouldn't let him come to the hospital. I explained that I couldn't give out information, but he could talk to her afterward. I went in, told her he had called, and she showed me a picture of him. He was white with straight red hair and a pimply face—the runt of the litter. About an hour later, her Phys. Ed. teacher stopped by to check on her, which I thought was odd. We didn't get many teachers checking on students, as you can imagine.
He was the total opposite of the boyfriend: tall and very muscular with a beautiful smile and rich, chocolate brown skin. The girl's father then accompanied her to the delivery room. Odd again, but OK. The more she pushed, the louder she cried. In between, she kept saying, “Sorry daddy". Finally, out slid a very beautiful, chocolate brown baby boy.
I thought her father was going to pass the heck out on my delivery room floor. I did my usual "It's a boy!" and said nothing else. I handed him off to a nursery nurse and got dad a chair. The girl said, "I'm sorry daddy," over and over again still. Her mom, now frowned up, came to see the baby. She took one look, then started asking God for forgiveness.
I sent her dad home a short bit later, admonishing him to react at home. I set up a time for our counselor to meet with him before I left. After talking to the girl, she admitted her gym teacher had been giving her "special treatment". I explained intimacy to her and she said she'd only kissed the boyfriend, but had stayed after school to be with her gym teacher.
I'm state-mandated to report child mistreatment, so I did. Two weeks later, with her world shattered—her baby was given up for adoption. I wish her the best. This was in 1989.
9. Crisis Averted
My wife and I are both brown-skinned, dark-haired half-Mexicans, and our moms are both 100% white blondes with blue and green eyes. All this to say, we sort of knew it was going to be a genetic gamble with our baby, but the nurse who was assisting with the delivery had no idea. At one point, she got sort of nervous and called for help. Another nurse, likely more senior in position, came in.
She nodded and came over to talk to me. I thought there was something wrong with the baby as she came over and stumbled through some questions. Then, finally, she asked if either of us happened to be blonde growing up. I said I was and that both the baby's grandparents are as blonde as they come. This wave of relief went over her and she brought me over to see this blonde as heck crowning baby head.
It's funny because he looked just like me but with whiter skin. We often get awkward questions about his heritage and my wife always hits them with, "Yeah, we're not sure if he's mine". It's always funny to see people nod for a moment and then go "Wait, what?"
10. Done And Dusted
I had a college buddy whose fiancée was pregnant. They were the "perfect couple". They both had great careers starting out, and everything was butterflies and rainbows, etc. Fast forward to the delivery room—they were in there, and out came a very Black baby. He was quite the pale redhead, and she was a blonde, blue-eyed Texas girl. He made sure everyone was OK, waited for her parents to arrive, then left without saying a word.
He moved all his stuff out of the house while she was in the hospital and cut off all communications with her. Just walked out of their lives in the most stone-cold act I'd ever seen. They were together for nine years, and he just left cold turkey. She tried to contact him at his job a few times, but he quickly moved up the ladder and eventually got a job in another city.
He told me once that he took solace in the fact that her family had already dropped about $10k in a wedding that never happened.
11. Slow News Day
I used to work with a guy whose wife was pregnant. Near the delivery time, everyone at our place of business had a big party with gifts, money, etc. When the big day arrived, her water broke, and they got in the car to go to the hospital. She broke the news to him in a horrific way. She told him the baby was not his and that the kid would be of another race. She also requested that he just drop her off at the hospital and then leave.
He took a few days off work, found a new apartment, moved out, filed for divorce, etc. He called into work and told someone what happened, so the news spread pretty fast. All of the congratulations cards were cleaned up and thrown away. Everyone was very sensitive to his pain. Except, somehow—I don’t know how—I did not get the news.
So on his first day back, I walked into the office he shared with six other guys and said, “Hey hey, Daddio, how’s fatherhood so far? Getting any sleep? Got some pictures? Let’s see the little tyke!” He slowly lifted his head to look at me with a painful gaze. The room was completely silent. One of his workmates stood up, grabbed my arm, and walked me out of the room, shushing me.
“What happened, “ I asked, “Did it pass? What’s the problem?” When he told me everything, I about expired myself. I still feel bad for the dude and it’s been 30 years.
12. Calm And Uncollected
I used to work in the newborn nursery at a hospital. We get the babies right from delivery, clean them up, footprint them, check their vitals, etc. Dads usually came in with the newborns. So one day, this dad came in with this baby. The dad was white, the mom was white, and the baby was very obviously not white. The dad was very quiet standing next to the baby, watching us clean it up.
He said quietly, "I don't think this is my baby". You could tell he was absolutely devastated. We advised him not to sign the birth certificate until he was sure. Not sure what happened after we sent the baby back out to the mom, but I felt awful for the guy.
13. Switched At Birth
This happened with my husband's parents. This was 40+ years ago when they took the baby away to be all cleaned up. My husband's dad looked at the baby and said, "That is not my son!" The nurse says: "Oh, yes it is. Sometimes they just look different after they're cleaned up". But he still asserted, "No! That is definitely not my son!"
Then, down the hall, they heard another parent say to his partner, "WHAT THE HECK, THIS BABY IS WHITE! YOU CHEATED ON ME?!" The nurse got wide-eyed and said, “Let me go check on that" and scooped up the baby. Turns out, they accidentally switched the babies. It's a great story, but wow...Can you imagine if they just hadn't noticed?!
14. Free And Clear
A friend of mine got pregnant in high school. She claimed it was our local doctor’s son’s kid, so he agreed to deliver his grandchild for free. Well, when the child was delivered, it was obviously half African-American, and the doctor’s son and the girl were both white. I think he still delivered it for free, as he was relieved his 14-year-old son wasn’t a dad.
15. Unhappy Birthday
Labor and delivery nurse here. Black babies are usually a lot lighter at birth. Not everyone is aware of this, so I’ve had a few dramatic deliveries where the father looks at the baby and accuses the mom of cheating because the baby isn’t as dark. There’s always a lot of drama, but if the father is accusing the mother of cheating right after the delivery of their child, then their relationship dynamic might not be the best, to begin with.
16. Order Up
I work in anesthesia. One of my colleagues had someone deliver a baby with "Steve's Lunchbox" tattooed above the, er, "birth canal". Not really thinking, the OB-GYN said to the father after the delivery: "Congratulations, Steve". The guy replied that his name was indeed not Steve. I think the doctor felt like a bit of a fool after that one.
17. That’s That, Brittany
I worked in the army hospital in Fort Lewis. A woman came in for belly pain and we found out that she was 10 weeks pregnant. The husband at her bedside started laughing, then he grabbed his coat and left the room. When he explained the situation to us, everything made sense—he said he had been in Afghanistan until three weeks prior. He looked back and her and just said, “Well, that’s that, Brittany".
I always liked how classily he left her while she just silently stared off into space.
18. The Proof Is In The Pudding
When I was born, the Indian doctor told my very, very white parents: "Oh, she looks like an ethnic baby!" It became a funny story years later, but I imagine that it wasn't so funny when my brunette mother had to explain to my blonde dad that yes, the baby with a full head of long, jet-black hair was actually his child. I always wondered if my dad had some doubts about me during the first few months of my life before my hair turned blonde.
19. Caught Red-Handed
I’m a nurse in a Level 4 neonatal ICU. We service the sickest of the sick from our state and the surrounding states, so we see it all. One time, we had a baby that was sick as snot. Lo and behold, we discovered its blood, spinal fluid, etc. was completely septic with herpes. In most babies, we avoid this by treating herpes while the mom is pregnant.
In this case, however, the mom didn’t even know she was a carrier. So where did it come from? This is the awkward and sickening moment when everyone in the room learned the truth. Turns out, the father had an affair and contracted the virus from his lover. So yeah, while the woman’s baby was on the verge of passing, she also found out her husband had been cheating on her. His cheatin’ heart is the reason their baby was sick.
20. Up And Outta Here
My best friend was dating a girl and he knocked her up. They got engaged, then planned to get married right after the baby was born. There were about 10 of us in the waiting room waiting for her to crank out the baby. It was essentially her parents, some of her friends, and some of ours. After we were sitting there for about two hours, he walked out with a smirk on his face.
He said, "Let's go". We all thought something horrible had happened. Her friends asked him how the baby was, and he said, "Fine, but Black". He motioned for us to go, so we followed him. In the parking garage, he told us to follow him to his apartment, then he sent me a text asking if I could put him up for a while. We literally moved him out of his apartment and into my spare bedroom in like an hour, tops.
Her parents didn't know who to be mad at. The confusion on their faces when he told them the baby was Black was priceless.
21. Lost In Translation
I am a nurse working in labor and delivery. Most of the time, if the mom thinks the baby may not be her boyfriend’s or husband’s, they will just have their friend, sister, mom, or whoever is with them there for the delivery and have the dad come to the hospital room after they’ve seen the baby. There are no guarantees because babies can change a lot over a couple of weeks.
Many African American babies have very light skin when they are born and it eventually gets darker. I have had a patient’s husband get upset about the baby being too light (they were both Black) until his mom smacked him and told him that's what he looked like when he was born. Recently, I had something interesting happen that was along the same lines.
This girl came to the hospital in labor with her boyfriend, sister, and friend. The boyfriend didn't seem too engaged during the process, but that was not uncommon. The baby was born and is fine, and the sister sent the dad to get some stuff. Keep in mind: all of the people involved were Hispanic and only spoke Spanish. My Spanish just so happened to be pretty decent.
As soon as the dad left, the sister was like, “I have a question for you” and then proceeded to say something I couldn't understand at all. I asked her to clarify, but I was just not getting it, so I offered to go get the translator. She was like, “No! I don’t want it to be official". She then whipped out her phone and through Google translate asked me, "How can we get a paternity test in the hospital?"
I then had to explain that we really didn't do that, but she could get one at CVS. They told me that the baby didn't look like the couple's other child and that it might be someone else's, but they want to check before telling him. I just apologized and told them how they could get a DNA test at CVS. This wasn't the first time I'd been asked about paternity testing; I just had no idea how to say it in Spanish.
Some hospitals used to offer paternity testing, but many no longer do because it is not usually seen as medically necessary. Also, they usually aren't covered by Medicaid or insurance, so the hospital ends up eating the cost. You don't know anyone else's life circumstances, so it is best to reserve judgment about the choices they have made because not every situation is cut and dry.
Plenty of biological fathers leave and do not support their children, and women are not all lying villains. Life is very gray, just treat people with respect and compassion.
22. Irish Twins
My professor was a labor and delivery nurse, and she once saw a man running between two delivery rooms. See, both the women he had impregnated went into labor and gave birth on the same day. Supposedly, the one he was married to was angry because the woman he cheated on her with was impregnated after the wife, but had her kid 10 minutes before her.
Labor and delivery is apparently the most drama-filled section of hospitals. My significant other is planning to be a nurse and he’s going to work in labor and delivery as well as neonatal this year. I’m excited to hear all the dramatic stories.
23. Almost Got Away With It
My grandmother was a nurse back in her day. Once, she was assisting with delivering a baby and the ostensible father commented that the child looked “good for a premature baby". Without thinking, my blunt, upfront grandmother told the truth sharply: "That baby is not premature". So I guess I know where I get my social obliviousness from now.
24. You Can’t Pick And Choose
I have to give my friend credit for doing something I don't think I could ever do. After being married for years and having a three- and one-year-old with his wife, he discovered that she had been cheating on him. Multiple times, and with multiple men. Anyway, when he found that there was the chance that neither of the kids was his, he bought two paternity tests.
He brought them home, but then the horrible conclusion hit him. He was prepared if they were his. He was prepared if they weren’t. He had NO freaking idea what he would do if one was and one wasn't. So he threw the tests away. They divorced, she keeps seeing people for short times, and he is now remarried to a fantastic person.
25. Stepping Up To The Plate
I had a paternity test done on my son when he was about seven months old. The baby momma constantly told me he wasn't mine, but then came after me for child support. So I got the test done, and he was mine. When my kid was 11 months old, DHS did a random substance test on her and she failed. I then started a two-year battle in juvenile court to not allow the state to "reunify" my child with the mother.
I finally got the juvenile court to release my case to the district court, where we fought for actual custody. During our district court battle, she took my son for a visit, and I got a call from the authorities in a city an hour away that she had been detained in a domestic dispute with her boyfriend at a hotel. They searched her and found all sorts of paraphernalia.
That was the last time she had him unsupervised. We went about two years of her barely calling, seeing him once a month for 10 to 20 minutes, until she finally got detained on "attempt to distribute". She spent three years behind bars and has been out about eight months now. She appears to be clean, and just gave me an extra $100 for child support yesterday.
So we're giving her a shot, but she will remain on supervised visits for a long time. The whole fiasco has been such a blur; it’s hard to remember exactly what, when, or where it happened, especially after years of really not having to deal with her. At the time, it was horrific. She punched me a couple of times, lied under oath, sent me threats, inappropriate photos of her with other men, the list goes on and on.
I've really tried to put a lot of it behind me, and forget about as much of it as I can so she can at least be somewhat a part of my kid’s life because that's what HE wants. I just watch her like a hawk now.
26. Daddy Issues
A distant cousin of mine definitely has children that don’t belong to the father...My cousin was adopted as an infant. She struggled with some developmental issues and has a low IQ compared to most, but can still live on her own with little to no issues. She eventually married a dark-skinned Latino guy several years ago, and they had a son together who has dark hair, dark skin, and dark eyes.
He is easily identified as their son. The real trouble happened years later. Her husband, who we’ll call Javier, has some IQ issues of his own. He's just a little slow when it comes to tasks and reasoning. Anyway, Javier was in the army and got deployed internationally for about six months. When he came home, his wife was four months pregnant...you do the math.
He somehow still believes the baby is his own, even after it was born with pale skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes. If that wasn’t bad enough, it happened AGAIN two years later with another baby—the same blonde hair and blue eyes. Everyone knows she slept with a different man (it was actually her high school boyfriend), but Javier still thinks the children are his.
It’s kind of sad, but at this point, there’s not much we can do. He has raised the kids as his own.
27. Almost Got Away With It…
A good friend of mine was out of the country on an emergency task and I ended up bringing his wife to the ER. We are very close, and all of us went to high school together. I was in the delivery room as she didn’t want to be without anyone there. The baby came out…straight-up Asian. I knew and the doctor knew.
I just walked out of the room right then and there. I had no idea his wife was being unfaithful. All I could hear was her wailing, saying her marriage was over. The nurses quickly picked up on why she was crying. Meanwhile, I called him and told him the news. He explained to his work that a true emergency was at home, so they chartered him a flight.
He filed for divorce right then and there. Only, it got so much worse. During the divorce, it came out that out of their three kids, none of them were my friend's kids. It didn’t just mess him up, it messed the kids up as well because they knew him as "daddy". The court tried to make my friend pay child support for those kids that weren’t his because "they became accustomed" to him as their father.
They claimed he was abandoning them when he had zero biological attachment. Family courts are so biased against men. My friend spent a fortune fighting it out of principle and eventually won. It emotionally ruined him and now he doesn’t trust women. He won’t go on dates or anything because of it. I can’t say I blame him because that is beyond messed up.
28. Down To The Wire
My brother’s friend was in the army and had a short-and-sweet wedding with a woman he had been dating for a few months. She's white American and he's white Hispanic, and the baby came out Black. Until the paternity results came in, she was adamant that the baby was his. She even went to the extent of claiming he was a bad father because he wouldn't claim "his" child.
The results came back and revealed she was a liar. And she thought she was going to stay with him for that army money.
29. Stay-At-Home Scandal
A co-worker’s aunt just found out her dad wasn’t actually her biological dad. She was really big into genealogy and had mapped out her family tree as far as she could go. She also took one of those ancestry DNA tests about two months ago, and her father’s side didn’t line up with what she was expecting. In fact, she didn’t recognize a single name that she was matched with paternally.
She casually asked her dad if he knew any of the names, and he recognized the surname of the maintenance man at the apartment complex where he and his wife lived shortly after they had gotten married. He claimed he was a lousy repairman who always flirted with his wife, etc. The wife had passed a few years ago, so she decided to not tell her dad the news or why she knew those names.
30. Oh, Baby
I was blood typing a newborn once. The mom was an O+, and the baby was AB+... which is more or less not possible. I immediately panicked, because I thought they had mixed up the babies. "Someone has the wrong baby; we're gonna get sued; they're gonna have to give genetic tests the entire nursery; what if they subpoena me for being the idiot who discovered the problem?" All of those thoughts raced through my mind.
After repeating the test three times and getting the same results, I called the floor and told them that they'd either drawn the wrong baby's blood, or they'd switched babies because the mom couldn't be the baby's mother. Nope, it was a donor egg. The redraw matched fine, and everyone was where they were supposed to be. Oh God, my heart, though!
31. Not Me…This Time
First off, my dad wasn't exactly the most faithful man. One of the women he slept with was claiming the child she had was his. There was just one issue: The child was mixed, and both my father and the woman were white as the day is long. It got so heated that their case actually went to The Trisha Show (which is kind of like the Jeremy Kyle Show, but older).
The test results came out, and shockingly enough, he wasn't the father. At one moment during the show, Trisha asked my dad: "Do you have any other kids?" and he just smirked. We never really found out how many women he got pregnant in that time, and it's likely I went to school with my brothers and sisters, but neither of us knew we had the same dad.
I never really found out what happened to the woman or to the baby either, but I truly do hope it grew up healthy and happy. I also hope the mother found peace with herself.
32. Pandora’s Box
A friend of mine and his girlfriend were on again and off again, but she still got pregnant at some point. She swore it was his, but he wanted a paternity test. He moved in with her and her mom, then she had the baby and they took the test. The test took a while to come back, but he and his family were over the moon with the baby, and they kind of started to forget about it.
Then, one day he mentioned it to the girlfriend’s mom and she said, “Oh yeah, she didn’t tell you? It came back a while ago, it’s totally your baby!” Awesome, right? Well, a few months later, they were moving out and he found the test in a box…It was not his baby. He left, but he did try to stay in the baby’s life in the meantime. Sadly, she wouldn’t let him.
33. A Real Man
Nurse here. I once had a couple come in for delivery. The father was Black and the mother was white. The father was so involved and so ecstatic about becoming a father for the second time with this woman. Nothing really seemed off…until she started pushing. The baby girl came out completely white, with dark hair and blue eyes.
Usually, Black babies come out a little pale, but this one was just straight-out white. We had to take the father out for fear of him becoming manic, but he just sat outside the room, on the ground, with his face in his hands. That was one of the saddest moments I think I've ever seen with a father, besides stillbirth. The odd thing after, though, was that the mom didn't want the baby and wanted nothing to do with the biological father; probably out of guilt.
So she left the responsibility of this baby and their other two-year-old boy to this man who didn't even question taking on the child.
34. Clearing The Air
My husband and I were visiting our friends who’d just had a baby. We are the godparents. Anyway, we were standing in the hallway talking to both sets of grandparents. Well, apparently, the hospital has a rule that only five visitors may be present in the hallway, but the security guard had let all six of us in for some reason and we didn’t realize it.
This nasty nurse came up to us, noted that there were six of us, told us someone would have to leave immediately, and then turned to my husband and said, “Oh, are you the daddy?” He had the perfect reply. Without missing a beat, my husband said, “That’s what we’re all trying to figure out here". She got a look of horror on her face and backed away.
35. Back To Square One
I know of a related court case that made it to the state's highest court. So, this Black guy and this white woman who were married ended up separating and they both moved out of the state. Later on, the guy got a phone call from a friend and a relative of his ex, saying that his ex was pregnant and ready to give birth any day now.
The guy drove across the country so he could be there for the delivery. The baby came out white with blue eyes and red hair. The mom said it "must be a trick's baby". Seeing as the guy is Black, he understandably peaced out. Later on, the mom's parental rights were terminated as it was determined she was unfit to be a mother, and the state went about trying to find the biological dad to notify him before the kid could be adopted.
Since the dude was still her husband at the time the child was born, he was legally the presumptive father. The state performed genetic testing and there was a huge twist. Turns out, HE IS THE FATHER. For an extra kick in the pants, the state ended up terminating his parental rights for abandonment. Not a happy ending.
36. Buzzer Beater
A doctor I know was doing his OB-GYN rotation and was training in a very rural and conservative part of the country. It was his first time assisting with delivery. He told me, “I don't know nothin' about birthing no babies, but the attending says, 'Get in there and learn.'” The birth was about to happen, and the woman wanted her husband to leave the room. She insisted.
So the doctor told the husband that he couldn't stay. Plus, medically, we needed to calm the patient to focus on birthing, and she was all angsty with her husband in the room. So the husband left. The birth then completed normally and the first thing the woman asked was, “What color is it?” All the doctor said in reply was, The important thing is that the baby is healthy".
The woman said, “You have to talk to my husband and explain it somehow". At that point, the doctor said, '” I’m sorry, but that is totally not my job. My job was to get the baby out of you and it is out". He then quickly left the room as the husband was on his way in. This lady really was playing the cheating game all the way to the buzzer.
37. Telling On Yourself
My mother used to work in a medical lab many decades ago. One day, another woman who worked in the building was visiting the lab, and during the conversation, she mentioned that she was blood type X, her husband was type Y, and their child was type Z (I don’t remember the specific types). One of the younger lab techs blurted out, “That’s impossible".
The doctor in the lab just stared daggers at him. Luckily, the visitor didn’t notice or didn’t care, and moved along shortly after. My mom still remembers it as one of the most awkward moments she’d ever been privy to.
38. Holier Than Thou
One of my cousins just did a 23andMe test with her dad and discovered that they were not biologically related at all. It was especially horrible because my aunt, her mother, is one of the most ridiculously zealous and judgmental people I have ever met. She screams at the baby cousins when they don't behave perfectly, and she literally threw a pocket Bible at a woman in a grocery store after the woman cursed while on the phone.
She also likes to send me long, unsolicited letters about "God's plan" for my life. Surprisingly, her husband is the most fun and laid-back person I've ever met. He did not deserve this, nor did she.
39. Russian Roulette
This was my great-grandmother’s story. She grew up and in a very bad and poor area of a city near an army base around WWII and WWII. In order to make ends meet, she met up with various men. Our understanding is that she was very good at her job and therefore very popular with all the men around. She did not care what you looked like or your skin color, as long as you paid.
Her first husband finally figured out that she was the infamous “town favorite” when her first kid came out very obviously mixed. They got divorced and she found a second husband who didn't mind…at first. One white child and two mixed babies later, they divorced. Repeat with two out of 11 known living kids being 100% white.
A total of five husbands, as well as several boyfriends and fiancés, walked out on her. The hospital staff apparently used to make bets on how soon she'd be back and what mix the kid would be the next time.
40. What You Don’t Know Won’t Hurt You
My sister got pregnant in high school and later met her now-husband when she was five months pregnant. She is white and her boyfriend is black. The baby daddy, however, was white but not in the picture. At the delivery, I was with our entire family, including my now brother-in-law, visiting the baby. My sister was still in recovery from her C-section.
The brother-in-law picked up my niece, and the nurse looked at him and said, "She should darken up in a few days". We all had a laugh. We knew he wasn't the father, but she didn't. I always wondered if she felt bad or assumed adultery. They have two more girls together and he was able to officially adopt the first baby three years later.
41. Family Resemblance
I'm too young to have witnessed it, but back in the late 1950s or 1960s, my uncle had an affair with a woman who later divorced her husband and became his wife. She had two children with her first husband—or at least, that was the official story that everyone maintained for a good long while. However, it was extremely obvious, based on appearance, that the second of my aunt's two children was my uncle's biological child.
This girl looked nothing like my aunt's first husband or her older half-brother, but she looked exactly like my uncle. As the years went by, the pretense was dropped and was never mentioned again.
42. Cut And Run
My biological father is Greek with very pale skin, and my mom is a white western European mutt. When I was born, I had very dark skin and a full head of thick, black hair. My dad didn’t seem concerned but his mother freaked out. She called my mother and grandmother not-so-nice names and eventually left our lives. My father ended up splitting on us when I was about three weeks old with no explanation.
A couple of months later, my skin lightened, all of my black hair fell, and it turned out he was the father. We’ve never tried to reach back out to his family because, in that first year of my life, they went through a lot of drama including rehab stays, drive-by shootings, an affair followed by a divorce, another baby momma my mother didn’t know about, and so on.
My father and I tried to form a relationship when I was in high school. It went okay at first, and then he got weird very quickly. He urged me to call him dad, insisted on “regular visitation,” and routinely showed up at my friends’ and boyfriends’ houses causing a scene. He also pressured me into getting family pictures taken with his new lady and his five other kids.
By the way, none of us have the same mother, and this is not including the baby he had and ditched before he got together with my mom. I regret ever trying at all. He and his family are still trashy hot messes, and I’m glad my family decided to keep me away from them. The cherry on top—he was working for my husband’s parents when my husband and I first met.
Once my husband’s parents found out who he was and what had happened, they fired him so I would never have to run into him at their business. He had it coming anyway.
43. In The Pink
I was doing epidurals in residency and this Caucasian couple came in. They were from a more rural part of the country and they didn't look or sound particularly educated. Anyhow, the wife was particularly antsy. She was asking when she could go home even though the baby wasn't out yet. Her husband looked bored and uninterested like he'd been there a whole bunch of times.
I usually don't stay in the rooms during delivery, but I just happened to be nearby for this one to give more of the epidural because of a tear immediately after delivery. When I got to the room, the wife was holding her eyes shut and didn't want to see the baby. I looked at the baby and he was obviously Black. Now the husband was paying attention, and he saw what I did.
He kept repeating, "When is that baby gonna pink up?" Louder and louder. The doctor tried to diffuse things by reminding everyone that the moment was critical. He suggested that the baby be taken to the resuscitation area in the NICU and that the father should step out while they repaired the laceration. We called the social worker, then I was called elsewhere, so I don't know what happened afterward...but I can't imagine it was good.
44. Third Time’s The Charm
Long story short, I do marketing for a housing company, and this entails getting testimonials from residents at our properties. This one couple I talked to were probably in their 40s. They told us that their kids were finally out of the house so they decided to downsize. After the formal part of the interview was over, the couple was still talking to us.
They said something like, "Yeah, we couldn't wait to get on with this part of life but...then we accidentally had a third kid. Despite what they say, those dang vasectomies don't work 'cause I still knocked her up!" The wife's eyes were wide and she was looking at us with a panicked expression on her face. My own expression had changed from a smile to pure confusion, but I honestly couldn't help it.
Still not sure if they were telling us the truth or if that guy had actually been raising someone else's kid for 18 years.
45. His Own Mother Wouldn’t Love Him
When I was born, I had to be taken away due to a medical issue. My mother only saw me for a split second. When I finally came back, I was quite tanned because my dad’s side of the family is, but my own mother didn’t even recognize me. She apparently made a big fuss, saying, “This isn’t my child, this baby is Black!” Labor really can mess up your head.
46. Hidden Depths
So this Black couple gave birth to a white baby. Suddenly, the grandma on the mom's side walked in and saw the dad with the baby. Without skipping a beat, the grandmother started talking about how her grandmother was actually white and it involved forbidden love—they met while he was deployed, etc. Turns out, the Black dad was just holding a white family friend's relatively newborn baby who came to visit.
The actual newborn, who was clearly a Black baby, was getting cleaned up in the other room. The couple just laughed it off and the grandma changed the subject, never to speak of the non-existent white grandma again.
47. Blood Is Thicker Than Water
My fiancé's mom is a labor and delivery nurse. One time, she had a patient whose parents were present during her stay at the hospital. The staff there has a whiteboard with some general information about the patients like blood type, time spent in the wing, and how far along. This information is nameless for HIPAA reasons and instead has a patient’s number.
So this patient happened to be the only one in the wing at the time. Her father was walking back from the cafeteria at one point and he noticed the board. He stopped one of the nurses and asked if the blood type for the patient on the board was correct since he knew his daughter was the only patient there. It was B+. The nurse confirmed it was correct.
Turns out, he knew his and his wife's blood type. He was O+ and his wife was A-. This combination will never yield a B+ baby. He brought his wife out and just pointed at the board—a look of shock just washed over her.
48. Never A Dull Moment
My wife is a registered nurse as well as a hospital supervisor. “Code Yellow” is the code over the intercom for security and/or large male nurses needed. It rarely ever happens, but every now and then, over the speakers, you hear a “Code Yellow to Labor and Delivery". You know the reason.
49. Pulling A Fast One
My ex-girlfriend delivered a baby while I was in the delivery room and turns out it wasn't mine. She was 16, while I was 15. All along, I was under the impression that the kid was mine and it was time for me to be an adult. I took all the classes, read the books, and worked every night and weekend to save whatever money I could as a 15-year-old.
When I finally got the call that she was in labor, I had somebody rush me to the ER. Luckily for her, it didn't last long—only about six hours—but there was a complication. The baby came out with the umbilical cord wrapped around its neck. The doctor assured us it was going to be OK, but the nurses were prepping for things to go south. When the baby came out, it was a light shade of purple.
The nurses immediately took the baby and put on the smallest mask they had on it; to help it get the oxygen I guess. I was too panicked to ask a lot of questions. They told us they needed to keep the baby on watch overnight, so I stayed in the room with my ex. The next evening, the baby was back in the room with us and all seemed well. The ex was asleep, and the same nurse from the night before came into the room and beckoned me out.
She told me that at risk of her losing her job, she had to break some harsh news to me. She said that kid was not mine and that, while at this stage it wasn't obvious, over the next few weeks it would become clear that the kid was mixed. Since both of us were white, there was a high probability that it wasn't mine. Cue a mixed bag of emotions, and me promptly waking my ex to get a little clarification.
I came to find out that she knew the chances and was just hoping it was mine because it worked better for her. Apparently, her father was old school and conservative, and she didn't want to have to deal with that. I left the hospital to collect my thoughts, and a few weeks later, I was served with child support papers. One DNA test and about six weeks later, I was determined to be 0.0% that kid’s father.
Wherever that nurse is now, I hope her life is amazing. I understand that she was not supposed to get involved in the personal side of things, but she saved me a lot of additional headaches.
50. It Doesn’t Add Up
My aunt is a nurse in the maternity ward. She had a couple come in and they were both very Black. Well, the lady had a baby and it was white as heck. Like, totally pale with no trace of any pigment. They put the baby on her mom and the mom started yelling about how it wasn't her baby and they must have taken hers away. In all fairness, women can get very confused after delivery.
She was sobbing and freaking out while the father was just sitting there looking very confused. Even he realized that if she did cheat, there was no way the baby would be THAT white. The doctor and nurses were trying to assure her that it indeed was her baby and that the skin would darken later. But it was something else entirely. It was the mother-in-law who solved the puzzle.
When the guy called his mom, she pointed out that they had a second cousin who was albino and maybe the baby got that gene. Turns out, that's exactly what happened—the baby was albino.
Sources: Reddit,
