So, in another thread, I posted this question from The Book of Questions:

"You discover your wonderful one-year-old child is, because of a mixup at the hospital, not yours. Would you want to exchange the child to try to correct the mistake?"

For me, that's a very easy question, and I 100% know my answer without needing to even think about it. But it got me thinking of other similar scenarios where it might not be as easy for me. So that made me think of this scenario and question for you guys:

You bring your baby home from the hospital. When he's about a year old, you find out he's very sick. There is nothing they can do for him. He's going to get sicker and sicker over the next few months and then he will die. Shortly after learning that, you find out there was a mixup at the hospital. Your baby is not your biological child. Your baby's biological parents want to switch babies, even knowing that their biological baby is not going to live. But they want to switch right now, and they don't want you in their biological baby's life anymore. So, in that case, do you keep the baby who you have been raising and who is dying? Or do you take the baby that will live?

This one is tough for me. On the one hand, being blood-related means literally nothing to me, so the baby I raise is generally the baby I want to keep. But if I keep him, I have to watch him slowly die. If I give him up, then I don't have to watch him die and can remember him the way he was. But if I give him up, I would be giving him over to complete strangers, and he would probably be crying for me, possibly for the whole rest of his short life. But I would fear for that other child. If they could raise that baby for a year and then give him up so freely, do they even care about him at all? I really don't know what would be worse. To watch my baby slowly die, and thereby pass on my chance to have a child who lives, and to wonder for the rest of my life if they even cared about that other child and were treating him well. Or to give my baby to strangers, and to not be there for him, and to know he was probably crying for me, but to know the other child was safe and cared for with me. I think either one would haunt me for the rest of my life.

Sorry if I overstep, but do you have a biological child? I'm asking because you say bloodties mean nothing to you, but the problem with switching babies isn't so much about your blood flowing threw your biological baby's vains as much as the fact that during the 9 months of pregnancy you form a bond with that child. You know when he is up, you worry when he's not moving, you make sacrifices for your babies health and daydream about how they are going to be (tall/short, with straight or cury hair, etc) . Even before the baby is born you create a powerful bond with him.
I realise that for 1 year you took care of a baby that you thought was yours and you love him to death, but I don't think it's that simple to make a decision even if both babies are healthy. For me it would be like having to decide witch of my children I would like to keep. So how do you do that?

No, I do not have biological children.

I understand that you bond to your baby while carrying him. But the bond of carrying a child for 9 months pales when compared to the bond that is formed by raising a child for a year. So, if both babies are healthy, it's a very easy choice for me. That's not to say that I wouldn't care about my biological child or that I wouldn't want him or think of him. It's just to say that I would absolutely not give up the baby that I had been raising for anything. If I was able to have both babies, though, that would be my first choice.

I admire you for that. And if you truly feel like the baby you have been caring for is yours than there really shouldn't be much of a dilema. Your baby is the one you took care of. The health issue shouldn't make a difference.

In all fearness, there are different motives for the other couple to say they don't want to stay in touch, so in my perspective there are 2 scenarious:
1.the other couple has to leave cuz they relocate and therefore don't choose to cut ties out of will. In this case they would probably love your biological baby as there own. The wish to switch the babies back would be due to the fact that they are also very attached to there biological baby, for the reasons I stated in my last post. But that doesn't mean that they don't love the other child. Keep in mind that they are willing to switch a healthy baby for a dying one, so they are very much capable of love.

2. They are jack-asses and don't want your biological baby, in wich case you will probably have the opportunity to get both babies.

I would let them spend time with their biological child before the child dies, but would continue to raise the child myself.

I am all that baby has known, I am sure they would rather spend time with the mom they have known taking care of them.
It might add to their stress levels and make them sicker if they have to be in a completely different environment with completely different people. They might be biologically family, but they are still strangers.
Plus, I know I will take the right care of a sick baby, but will they?

Of course I would feel bad the child is dying, and that I wont have my biological child to raise, but I have to think of what is best for the sick child. Even at only 1 year old, that child has feelings too.
Its not a time to be greedy and push my dying child on some other people and take their healthy child, even if the baby has my genes.