In a public hospital already known for understaffing and night-shift scandals, there was a nurse everyone trusted. She worked the maternity ward for over twenty years. She was quiet, efficient and hence never questioned. But what no one knew was that she switched babies. Not for money. Not for revenge. For choice.
She believed some parents didn’t deserve the children they were given. Drunk fathers. Crying teenage mothers. Abusive couples. Whenever she felt a family was unfit, she’d wait until the ward went silent, during power outages, emergency rushes, or midnight shifts, and swap newborn wristbands. One baby would go home to a different family. Another would disappear into the system. Stillborn records were easy to forge back then.
Years later, strange patterns began to surface. Children who looked nothing like their parents. Blood types that didn’t match.
Families torn apart by DNA tests they never asked for. When the nurse finally lay dying, a junior doctor sat beside her bed. She grabbed his wrist and whispered:
“People think destiny is divine… but sometimes it’s just a tired woman with access.”
The doctor later found a locked notebook hidden behind a ceiling tile in the old ward. Inside were dates, room numbers, and names. Hundreds of them. The hospital burned down before anyone could investigate. To this day, people still say
‘If you’ve ever felt like you didn’t belong
If your parents feel like strangers
If your blood tells a different story’
Who knows, maybe your parents aren’t your parents.
