http://siberiantimes.com/other/others/features/our-babies-were-swapped-at-birth-14-years-ago-and-this-is-how-were-coping/One family is Christian, the other Muslim. In 2011 they found out that their daughters had been swapped at birth, 12 years earlier. It is as great a nightmare as any parent can face: you love the daughter you have raised, but you suddenly discover she is not yours.
Yet your own child, so obviously your offspring, is a stranger to you. How would any of us cope?
Yuliya Belyaeva, 32, was born in Kopeisk in the Urals and has lived there ever since. 'I was 18 when I wed Alexei,' she said.
'We married in two beautiful ceremonies, first civil then in the Orthodox church'.
Soon she was pregnant and her contractions started and stopped and began again, becoming especially acute on the night of 16 December 1998.
'It came to midnight, and I was completely exhausted from pain and no progress in my labour. There was a little pause, and then I heard awful screams. They were coming from a very young girl, aged 17, but looking even younger, who seemed to be in complete agony.
'What's going on with her, why is she screaming like this? - I asked the nurse.
'She's just about to give birth', she answered and rushed to help the doctor. In a minute, I felt my own contractions getting impossible to bear.
I was rushed into the same delivery room where that girl had been moved. I even remember the doctor showing her a little screaming girl. Little did I know that I witnessing the birth of the girl who would become my daughter.'
Yulia's birth followed soon afterwards.
'A very strong pain, then pushing, then lots of orders and barking from doctors and nurses, then a feeling that I was going to die - and finally the end of the pain. The doctor held my baby up in the air and for the first time smiled at me - look what a beautiful girl!'