Two Babies: Switched at Birth

I watched this movie under the title “Mistaken Identity,” but I love, love, love the name it originally aired under “Two Babies: Switched at Birth.” The original title somehow sounds more like a made-for-TV masterpiece.

When Sarah (Melissa Gilbert) goes into labor, her husband rushes her to the hospital. Approximately 30 seconds later, we learn that they are “city folk” who only came to the country to go antiquing. Why would you go shopping when you're that close to labor? Better yet, what are you still doing out when it's pitch black at night?

Anyway, Linda (Patricia Arquette) goes into labor at the same time and conveniently, the two woman share a room. Sarah and James are super rich and Sarah puts her foot into her mouth when she asks Linda about her husband. As if her lack of a ring wasn't enough proof, Linda calmly explains that she's knocked up and single. After giving birth, Sarah notices that her kids looks a little off, but the nurse assures her that it's her kid, so she goes home to the city.

Darryl, aka Linda's spawn's sperm, pops up in town just in time to complain that he doubts the kid is his because he looks nothing like him. Linda doesn't want child support or anything else from him, but he still wants a blood test anyone. This guy is such a dick that he's worried about people calling him the dad around town, despite the fact that everyone knows he was sleeping with her and left town when she got pregnant.

Linda gets the news that (a) Darryl's DNA doesn't match the baby and (b) surprise! the DNA doesn't match hers either. Realizing that the babies were switched at the hospital, she decides to call Sarah. The last time she called her, Sarah was too busy with her big city life to deal with some chick from a hick town. After talking things over, Sarah and her husband agree to do a DNA test, which reveals that yup, the babies were totally switched at birth.

Instead of deciding to keep the kids separated forever or possibly switching them back, they decide to get together constantly and mope over their real child. Linda is a total free spirit who *gasp* feeds her son apple juice. The horror! Sarah's son cannot possibly have any type of sugar, so she actually dilutes his apple juice with a ton of water. Um, they made natural apple juice even in the 90s lady.

The little happy family thing kind of works, up to the point where Darryl starts sniffing around again. After dating and boffing like bunnies, he asks Linda to move in with him. Then he drops a bombshell, he wants to sue for custody of his real son. This basically means that they would keep custody of the other kid and have custody of their own.

Did I forget to mention that the two families are getting a huge settlement from the hospital? Yeah, that's why Darryl started coming around again. Darryl explains that he loves his real son, up to the point where the lawyer tells him that they won't get any money from the hospital if they get custody. Apparently, the law would consider everything okey-dokey if they got custody. I guess the 2+ years they spent raising another child doesn't count for anything.

Sarah realizes that Darryl is a dick, but of course Linda doesn't want to hear it. Sarah and James randomly show up at a birthday party for their real son and get into it with Darryl. Plus, Sarah finds out that she's pregnant (again) and is super busy with that. Ugh, so finally after like 40 minutes, Linda realizes that Darryl is a dick. In the process, James offers to buy her a house near them in the city and flat out give it to her, which is a deal I would totally take. The two families finally decide to help each other raise the kids and live happily ever after.

BTW, this is supposedly based on a true story. Given that there were quite a few stories like this, I don't know if it's based on a specific case or just some random conglomeration.