Man Switched at Birth Discovers Truth at Age 57

Man Switched at Birth Discovers Truth at Age 57
http://kaaltv.com/article/stories/S675841.shtml?cat=10151

Imagine for a moment finding out that you switched at birth -- that
the hospital made a mistake and gave you to the wrong family, and
that
the baby that was supposed to be your parent's baby was given to
another set of parents. Imagine through your entire life you were
teased and sometimes shunned by your own family for being different
and that your father even accused your mother of having an affair.
Imagine finding all of this out when you are 57 years old!

Pembroke, MA (PRWEB) November 23, 2008 -- Frederick George was raised
as a Roman Catholic in a Lebanese family of 13 children but should
have been raised in a Scottish Presbyterian family of five, if not
switched at birth.

"I was accidentally placed in the wrong bassinet at the hospital the
night I was born and did not discover this until I was 57 years old,"
says George. "The result is that I lived a life that should have been
someone else's and he lived a life that should have been mine."

George tells the heart-wrenching story of two families forever
impacted by a nurse's simple mistake in the autobiography, Switched
at
Birth: My Life in Someone Else's World (ISBN- 978-1439204825, Sept
2008, BookSurge, 218 pages, $15.99).

Switched at Birth tells of growing up with a father who always
suspected George was someone else's son, of how the birth switch was
discovered, and how the author came to terms with the fact that he
had
been living in someone else's world.

"The man I knew as my father, John George, occasionally - sometimes
in
fun and sometimes more seriously -- accused his wife of having had an
affair before I was born," says George, "I didn't look Lebanese. As
it
turns out, I wasn't even slightly Lebanese!"

George was raised the son of John and Ngaire George in a Lebanese
community in Dunedin, New Zealand, where he remained for 26 years
until moving to America about 35 years ago. It took more than half a
century for George to learn he was actually born the son of Gordon
and
Helen Churchman. Of his four parents, only birth mother Helen
Churchman is still alive at age 85 in New Zealand.

The other "switched child", Jim Churchman, had become good friends
with the author's brother, Michael George, and met the George family
members growing up. As an adult, Jim Churchman suffered a heart
attack
and began exploring family medical histories for heart attacks --
none
in the Churchman's, several in the George's.

At the request of the author's brother Philip, via Jim Churchman,
Frederick George took a DNA test while visiting New Zealand and the
results confirmed the switch.

"The mother who raised me, Ngaire George, was the greatest person in
my life and will always be my mother," says George, "and Helen
Churchman will always be Jim's mother. I can't break away from my
history. I love these people. I've grown up with the Georges. I can't
leave them or trade them in as you might do with an old shoe."

Helen Churchman writes her recently-discovered birth son once a week
in an attempt to bond with a son she has not known for 56 years. "We
are in pretty close touch," says George, "and we are trying to get to
know each other. She is one of the reasons I wrote this book. I want
her to know her son; to know not just that I am but to know who I am."

Another reason George wrote Switched at Birth was to offer advice to
anyone who has been adopted, fostered out, or switched at birth to be
themselves, maintain old family ties while bonding with a new family,
accept their fate and get on with life. Switched at Birth is
available
at fine booksellers everywhere, online at Amazon, BN, Ablebooks,
BooksinPrint and the author's web site: www.switchedatbirth .org FOX-
25
Boston calls it an "incredible story."

About the Author

Frederick George and wife Paula have two grown children and a
grandchild and are living in Pembroke, MA. George, a veteran of the
New Zealand Army, has worked in a slaughterhouse, maintenance in a
factory, as a landscaper, baker and hairdresser among many other
jobs.
He now works in a deli department at a supermarket when not spending
time with his children and infant grandson.