The steep hill goes straight down into the fjord. Autumn colors the sky above the small town in Western Norway. Mona looks out over a landscape she knows well, and which she has seen many times change with the seasons. The village by the Sognefjord is Mona’s childhood village. She lived here for the first 20 years of her life. Still, she doesn’t feel at home here. – There is something about the mountains and the fjord. It gets so confined. It is by the sea that I find peace. It is wrong that Mona grew up here. Actually, she should have been a child by the coast. What actually happened when her life took such a sudden turn right from the start? Why was the truth about the real family hidden from her? And who is actually to blame? The change Nobody knows for sure what happened at the sanitarium at Eggesbønes in Sunnmøre one winter’s day in the 60s. Behind the door on the far right is the delivery room where Mona was born. There are several births here these days. Two little girls must have been confused at the hospital a short distance from Fosnavåg. How could that happen? Do the newborns look alike? Were the mothers in trouble when they got the wrong girl? A doubt that is drowned out by all the other feelings that come with becoming a mother? Perhaps the little ones also noticed that something was wrong, without being able to say so? A little girl stays with Mona’s parents. Mona hosted with the wrong family. Shortly afterwards they travel from Sunnmøre to Sogn, from the sea to the fjord. She didn’t have a bad childhood. Mona is one of the children in a growing family. But there are big differences within the sibling group. One child does not resemble the others; she has dark hair and curls. The interests are also different. Mona takes no pleasure in skiing or hiking in the mountains above her childhood home. She has creative abilities. But no one in the family likes it the same as Mona. She feels differently. Several times she asks him, who sees her as her daughter, if he is really her father. As an adult, she understands why he liked it badly. As an adult, she knows that the truth is so shocking that she could not have imagined it as a child. This is the first picture Mona has of herself Photo: Privat Avsløringa Åra går. Mona is getting older. The differences are growing. She gets a job at the hotel in the village. Then moves to Bergen to study. Gets his own family. Little by little she finds out more and more what her real interests are. What is her identity. She lives by the sea now, as an adult. Nevertheless, the turmoil he knew as a child is with her. A feeling of not belonging. But the unrest is there all the time. One evening he watches a program on television. It is about a man who finds out via a website that he has several children. Mona decides to try to calm the unrest. She takes a DNA test. She registers on the My Heritage website. And she finds family members she didn’t know about. – It was a complete shock to me. I hadn’t imagined that I didn’t have the right mother. The feeling of not being like the others in the family was more than just unease. – It was like a piece falling into place. Mona as a little girl Photo: Privat Leitinga Mona must find out as much as possible. Ho saumfer archive. Trying to find all the information. She begins to sense what has happened. There aren’t that many people coming into the world at Eggesbøne’s nursing home these winter weeks. There she was separated from the woman who carried her for nine months. Who took Mona’s place? Where was Mona supposed to be? Spora hires Mona for a new birthday, for a new family. For new answers to who she is. Mona should have been a child by the sea. It was over fifty years before Mona found out. But there is someone who has known. Mona was actually supposed to have had her childhood by the coast. Photo: Oddgeir Øystese / news Valet What do you do if you find out that your teenage daughter is not actually your child? There are strict requirements before long trips abroad in the early 80s. Tests done, blood samples obtained. A woman finds out that something is not right. A daughter is not hers. She has another child somewhere. We don’t know what the mother by the sea thought when she realized that a life-changing mistake had happened. But we know she took it seriously. The health authorities will be contacted. She demands answers. A lawyer is hired. She needs to know who her biological children are. And how the child is doing. After extensive investigations, a response will come from the Norwegian Directorate of Health. They have narrowed down those in question to five teenage girls. They further write that “nothing indicates that the persons in question do not live in satisfactory social and material conditions”. A mother is pressured into what is described in the case file as a painful and difficult choice. It says that she has been advised to drop the case. The conclusion is that the mother must come to terms with not knowing her biological child. And as it says; “let life go on”. The five girls do not get to know about the outcome. Mona does not get to know that someone has been looking for her. Mona at the secondary school she attended. Photo: Oddgeir Øystese / news Sinnet It is impossible to understand the dilemma. On the one hand, the desire to get to know their own child. On the other, what will it do to all the others involved. It is possible to understand the reluctance to break up into two families. But Mona has difficulty coming to terms with the conclusion she feels that her biological mother was forced into nearly forty years ago. – For me, it’s very silly. If it had been me in that situation, I don’t think I could have come to terms with it. – But I understand that it is difficult. That she had more she had to take care of. What Mona cannot understand is that the public made her believe that she had other parents than she actually had. A feeling can summarize what she knows now. She is angry. – I have lost so much. The opportunity to get to know my parents. My grandparents. The mind drives her forward in search of answers. And in the fight for someone to be held accountable. The fight Lawyer Kristine Aare Hånes is sitting in an office at Fisketorget in Bergen and is working on a completely unique case. Not just unique to her. There are few similar cases in Europe. In France, two ten-year-old girls received compensation when it was discovered in 2015 that they had been switched in the delivery room. In Steinkjer, a 58-year-old discovered that he had the wrong parents. Here, the families had not been able to give up their two-year-old children. In a recent judgment from the District Court, Hånes has established who Mona’s parents really are. Lawyer Kristin Aare Hånes in Rett Advokat. Photo: Oddgeir Øystese / news Old documents have been unearthed. DNA samples collected. “… the analysis alone gives a relative chance of 99.9999% that XX is Mona’s mother”. The verdict gives clear answers. And a basis for looking for even more. How could it happen that she was replaced? Lawyer Hånes has tried to find out. But most of the people who were employed at Eggesbønes during the time period in question are no longer alive. – But in any case, we want to find out why someone hid it from Mona in the 80s. When the biological mother contacted the municipality. A new legal process is underway. Hånes has sent a compensation claim of a two-digit million amount to the Directorate of Health and Herøy municipality. – The mistake with the confusion at the birthing room, and later hiding this from Mona is a gross violation of article eight of the European Convention on Human Rights. It states that everyone has the right to respect for their family life and private life. This is Mona from the back. The lawyer is listed above the island municipality of Sunnmøre. Document is lost or impossible to find. People who were involved in the case in the 80s remember nothing today. Now Mona and the lawyer want the municipality to be responsible for old mistakes. What a life in the wrong place. The municipality The clouds hung low over the town hall in Fosnavåg on this day in late autumn. Mayor Bjørn-Halvor Prytz and municipal director Trond Arne Aglen are sitting at the main entrance and are waiting for questions about what the municipality actually knows about this case. It’s not that much. – We are doing everything we can to find all the information about what happened to Mona. But that was a long time ago. And it takes time to retrieve information from various archives. It is Aglen who has been appointed to speak for the municipality. But actually we had hoped to speak to another manager in Herøy. When the notice about the change came in the 80s, the district doctor at the time was central to the assessments. He managed the dialogue with the Directorate of Health. We know this from the correspondence referred to in the district court judgement. Today he is acting municipal chief physician in Herøy. – He says he has vague memories of such a case. It could be this one. But it was a long time ago and for him. Aglen says the municipal superintendent does not want to talk to us until he has reviewed all the documents the municipality has ordered. Maybe he remembers more details then. – It is to take care of all those who may be involved in the case. If the municipality has any responsibility for compensation, they will not take a decision yet. But Aglen says they are busy giving Mona all the answers they can find. All answers ho deserve. – This is an outrageous case. We will turn over all stones to find out what we can. Trond Arne Aglen promises that Herøy municipality will do everything they can to find answers. Photo: Oddgeir Øystese / news The name Mona shows the way down the hill in the village of my childhood. Past the youth center where she learned traditional dance. Past the playground where she played football. Past the childhood home with fruit trees and autumn yellow beech trees. The childhood village that Mona doesn’t feel at home in. – I think maybe it’s the last time I’ll be here. Mona is ready to leave the old behind. Even her name is foreign to her now. – I have a name that was not intended for me. That is why I have decided to change my name. Then I distance myself from what was. Then I start all over again. Both fathers in this story are dead today. The mothers have no contact with Mona. Mona has had contact with one of her biological sisters. But it was broken when Mona went to court to have DNA samples taken. – I have received some pictures. Family photo from the family I was not a part of. I like to watch them. On the similarity between me and them. How I resemble my mother. Mona spends a lot of time thinking about how life could have been. – I think things would have been different if I had grown up with my biological family. It is not certain that it would have been better, but it would have been different. Maybe someone shared my interests? Maybe I would have understood who I am earlier. Mona does not think she will ever return to her childhood village. Photo: Oddgeir Øystese / news The question The story of Mona is a difficult story. It is about the innermost human being. About family and origins, about longing and missing. It asks questions about heritage and the environment. About what creates an identity. It shows a dilemma that has no clear answers. A choice between children. Between being silent and telling. Between truth and lies. The story of Mona has no winners. It only has painful sensations. Identity crises. Anger. But Mona was never given a choice. She never got to decide on the dilemmas where she was one of the main characters. Would she wish she didn’t know? That all the questions about how life could have been had instead become a feeling of just being different? – No, I have a completely different calm today. I have always been on the lookout for something or other. Now I have understood after what. Then Mona continues the search for new answers. Answer who she is and where she comes from. One thing he is sure of. She is not Mona. Mona grew up in this village. Photo: Oddgeir Øystese / news Hello! Thank you for reading this case. If you have any tips or input for me, please get in touch!
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Was changed after birth in the maternity ward in Western Norway – discovered after DNA test on MyHeritage – news Vestland
