She gave birth to her unborn sister’s children

This woman gave birth to three children and was shocked when she learned their biological mother was actually her sister. Lydia Fairchild was pregnant with her third child when she split up with her boyfriend Jamie. Struggling to support herself and her children, she applied for public assistance. As part of the application, both parents had to take a DNA test to prove they were biologically

related to the children. But when the results came in, they were stunned. The test showed that while Jamie was indeed the father, there was no genetic evidence that Lydia was their mother. Thinking there had to be a lab mistake, they ran the tests three more times. But each result confirmed the same shocking conclusion.

Suspected of illegal surrogacy and welfare fraud, Lydia was at risk of losing custody of her kids. So, when she had her third child, the court sent an officer to watch the birth and collect a DNA sample. But once again, the results came back negative. It turned out Lydia has chimerism, a rare condition where she carries two different sets of DNA.

During her mother's pregnancy, Lydia had a fraternal twin who fused with her in the womb, leaving her with her twin's DNA. This means Lydia is genetically her own twin, and all of her kids are genetically her unborn twin's children. Lydia's case was one of the first public reports of chimerism and started debates about twin's children. Lydia's case was one of the first public reports of chimerism and started debates about the reliability of DNA evidence in U.S. court cases.