Two babies were switched at birth over 39 years ago — now they finally know the truth.
Valentina Suman and Tatyana Muradyan were both born in the same hospital in Moldova. On March 27, 1978, nurses went to give them a bath and, in a strange twist of fate, returned the babies to the wrong mothers.
When the girls left the hospitals with their “new” families, they had trouble adapting. The babies had trouble eating, and both would cry incessantly. However, neither mother suspected that they weren’t caring for the baby they had given birth to.
Tatyana’s brother had always heard rumors that she might not be his biological sister, but he always brushed it off.
Anatoliy Lashtur, and his parents, Vera and Nikolay Lashtur, raised Tatyana ever since the moment she was handed to them. However, in 1999, the Lashtur family was preparing to move to the United States when they started to question if those rumors were actually fact. A neighbor approached them and started to make the Lashturs question the past few decades.
“She knew us. She knew the other family and she knew that both kids were having problems after the hospital,” Lashtur told InsideEdition.com. “As they grew up, I guess she could tell that the other kid looked a lot like our family and the kid that we had looked like their family.”
The Lashturs attempted to find the rumored “other family” before moving to the U.S., but they didn’t have any luck.
The family settled into their new lives in the United States but would often return to Moldova to visit relatives; during each visit, they would continue to search for the other family. Finally, this year, all of their searching paid off.
A neighbor was able to give them a name — the other woman was Valentina Suman. Lashtur, Tatyana, and his other sister Victoria searched for Valentina on Facebook and found her profile. They asked Valentina what her birthdate was and they were stunned.
Tatyana asked Valentina to send over baby pictures, and upon seeing them, she realized she looked like her family.
It wasn’t long before Valentina contacted a Russian television show about conducting a DNA test, that they would finally reveal the truth. The DNA test confirmed the lifelong rumors.
Lashtur was finally able to meet his biological sister, Valentina, for the very first time. Tatyana was also able to meet her biological mother after 39 years of being separated. Sadly, her father had passed away before they had a chance to unite.
“We went backstage and met the first time and we hugged and cried. It was one of those experiences that you know doesn’t happen a lot and when it does, you’ll never forget it. Everybody was crying,” Lashtur said.
Lashtur talks to his biological sister every day and has dreams of bringing her to the United States. Tatyana hopes to do the same for her biological mother.
Lashtur’s love for the sister he grew up with hasn’t changed throughout the process. In fact, they view it as gaining another family member.
“I talked to her and I told her nothing changes between us. The only difference is I gain a sister. We are brother and sister. We love her and nothing is ever going to change that,” Lashtur said.
The family has set up a GoFundMe account to fly Valentina and Tatyana’s mother to the U.S. for the holidays.
“At least we can try to bond together and enjoy whatever time we have left together,” Lashtur says. More on their emotional story and reunion below.
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