At first, I thought Rev Miller sounded like the “bad guy,” since he apparently made it clear to his wife that their marriage would be over if she made public her suspicions that the babies had been switched.

However, I cannot presume to judge Rev Miller based on the small amount of information available. It’s quite possible that he thought his wife’s suspicions were crazy. Maybe he wanted to protect her from being humiliated, as she might have been if no one believed her. The hospital personnel would probably have been prepared to swear that they didn’t switch the babies, and at that time there was no way to prove the babies’ identity conclusively. If Rev Miller was guilty of keeping quiet, then so were all the other church members, whom Mrs. Miller told, but who said nothing to Mrs. McDonald.

It sounds as though the story has a somewhat happy ending. I was glad to hear that both daughters called both their mothers regularly.

The birthweight issue is an interesting one because it is obvious by looking at the hospital documents that they were altered. The weights listed were very similar…within ounces actually and, as you said, babies commonly lose weight. The scale could have been unbalanced, As a nurse, I can assure you, I’d never believe someone had the wrong baby based on a weight difference alone. I can’t imagine, in view of Kay’s reaction to my mother’s suggestions later that she would have ever gone for a “switch back” without some better proof which was simply unattainable. My mother was on her way home with me when she began to suspect this and I can only speculate what they would have said to her if she had walked in demanding the right baby but I doubt it would have been nice. Something else that really needs to be understood is that this was my mother’s suspicion only until we had the blood test 43 years later. She had no proof.
Thanks to all of you for understanding that much of the story was left out and/or skewed and accept this as the explanation for my fierce defensiveness for my Mom. I’m very happy I grew up in the Miller family and had the parents I did.

Sven

I think you raise such a good point about needing to take into account that when you were born, there was no way to prove which child was a Miller and which a McDonald. Your parents were in a no win situation. They had no way to know if anyone would believe them and they may have caused more pain by telling than by not telling. Hindsight is 20/20; too bad, the same can’t be said for the complete blindness of foresight. From what you say, your parents did what they thought was best and they apparently did a good job based on what we hear from you and Esther.