Hey everyone. My name is Annie. I’m 15 years old. About three years ago I found out that my
mom was not actually my mother. Turns out she kidnapped me from the hospital. My life was turned upside down. They wanted to change my name! I can’t get used to my new family. I’m so unhappy and I have no one to talk
to about these things. Let me tell you everything from the beginning. To make sure that you don’t get confused
about who’s who, I’ll refer to the woman who brought me up as my fake mom. The woman who gave birth to me and who I’m
living with now, I’ll call my real mom. I was 12 when I learned this terrible truth
about my life. I was in school and I was called to the principal’s
office. There was a policeman and 2 women waiting
for me there. One of them was a psychologist and the other
was a social worker. Apparently, you need a psychologist there
when telling kids about stuff like this. The social worker was going to take care of
me until I was taken to my new family. They told me about what happened very simply. The people who brought me up weren’t my
real family. The woman who I thought was my mom had stolen
me from my real mom. I was going to be taken to my real family
as soon as possible and I was going to live with them from now on. My whole life changed at that moment. My real family lived in another city. A few days later, the social worker took me
to meet my new family. I went from being a single child to having
a brother. My real mom is a cashier at a convenience
store. She couldn’t get time off work so we met
her at the store. She started crying when she saw me. My real dad is a construction worker. He’s often out of town for work. I met him when he came home for the weekend. But they were complete strangers to me. When the truth came out, my fake mom was taken
into custody at work. My fake dad was picked up from home and taken
to the police station. After the initial interrogation, my fake mom
was arrested and taken to jail. My fake dad was released because he thought
that I was his real daughter. So you see – my fake mom tricked him too. Here’s the most exciting part. I’ll tell you about how I got kidnapped. My fake mom had to confess to everything and
describe every detail of how she kidnapped me during her trial. 15 years ago, my real mom felt labor pains
when she was getting ready to go to work. They didn’t have a lot of money back then,
just like now, so she had to go to work even when she was 9 months pregnant. When she got to the hospital, they said it
was too early to take her into the delivery room, but they didn’t send her home either. They made her wait in a room until her contractions
became regular. A while later, a nurse came into her room. After a short conversation, the nurse asked
my real mom where the father is. “My husband is working in another city. He’ll probably come tomorrow,” she said. You guessed it, right? That woman wasn’t really a nurse. She was my fake mom, dressed as a nurse on
the hunt for a baby. In court, she explained that she stole the
nurse’s uniform from the hospital’s laundry room. She had short hair back then. But she wore a wig to disguise herself. Since it was a large hospital, it was easy
for her to walk around pretending to be a nurse. She approached pregnant women to figure out
whether or not they were alone. They took my real mom to the delivery room
shortly after. I was born 20 minutes after 12. Then they brought my real mom back to the
same room. Once she had rested, they brought the baby
– meaning me – into the room to be nursed for the first time. A nurse who was an expert on breastfeeding
gave my real mom a quick intro. Then left my mom alone with me. Half an hour later, my fake mom came into
the room still wearing her nurse outfit. She asked my real mom if she had breastfed
the baby. My real mom said she did as much as she could. I had an identification bracelet on my wrist. My fake mom said, “The baby will get her
first vaccinations. In the meantime, why don’t you get some
sleep.” She didn’t want my real mom to get suspicious. “What will you name her? The bracelet only has your name on it. Let’s put the baby’s name on the bracelet
too” said my fake mom. My real mom said they were going to name me Crystal. My fake mom took me and left. She had stashed a large bag in the bathroom nearby. She went straight there,
and put me inside the bag, threw away the nurse’s uniform and the wig, and just walked out of the hospital
through the front door. I started crying and screaming. She thought she’d attract attention if she
took a taxi or a bus, so she walked all the way home which
took about 5 or 6 hours. So why did my fake mom do something like this? Even though it doesn’t excuse it, there
is a tragic story behind what she did. My fake mom and my fake dad weren’t getting
along at the time. My fake dad wanted a divorce. My fake mom got pregnant even though she didn’t
want to just to save her marriage. She thought her husband would not leave her
alone with a baby. As it turned out, he still left her. However, because of the pregnancy, he didn’t
file for divorce. So she got excited, thinking, “When the baby is born,
and he sees it and holds it, he’ll melt and come back home.” She went to the hospital the moment she felt
contractions but the doctor said that the baby was no longer alive. She was devastated because
she felt that she not only lost her baby, but also her husband. In that state of mind, she came up with the
devious plan to steal someone else’s baby and make it her own. She knew she couldn’t do it at the same
hospital because it was too small. After a while, she started visiting the city’s
largest hospital which is where she stole me from. After she brought me home, she waited a few
days before telling anyone. Finally she told her mom, my fake grandmother,
and then her husband, my fake father, that she gave birth. Obviously, nobody thought that I could have
been a stolen baby. When my fake dad saw me, he fell in love with
me right away. And he moved back home – and got back together
with my fake mom – the next day. I’m sure many of you are really curious:
Even though I have mixed feelings, I still love both of them. They are the ones who brought me up, gave
me the best of everything, and made me feel loved all the time. My fake mom is a public relations director
and my fake dad is a software engineer. We were doing really well financially. We had a beautiful home and I went to a really
good private school. But more importantly, we were a happy family. We have such wonderful memories together… Both my fake dad and
my fake mom are amazing people. I miss them and our old days so much. My real mom is not to blame of course. Somebody stole her baby and she had to live
with that pain all these years. But even if she is my real mom, she is still
a total stranger to me. I try to be nice to her but I can’t say
that we’re getting along very well. Once we started living together, she started
calling me by the name she had given me. “Good morning Crystal” “How are you Crystal?” “What would you like to eat Crystal?” At first, I didn’t say anything. But my name is Annie. I love my name and I definitely do not want
to change it. Finally, I had to tell her that. “I understand you but I don’t think I
can get used to another name” I said. She was really sad. “I don’t want to call you by the name
a kidnapper gave you. What are we going to do?” she asked. She was right. This was just another problem with no solution. We’ve been living together for 3 years now. My brother and my real dad call me Annie. But my real mom can only call me “dear”
or “sweetheart”. She avoids saying my name. I feel like my new family and I come from
different worlds. We’re so different that when I got to know
them, I began to think that there’s no way I could be their child. But they had done a DNA test for the court which proved that they are actually my real parents. Hold on – I don’t think I told you how
this all came out. That part of the story is also a bit tragic. It was my fake mom’s own mother who told
the truth to the police. My fake mom and her mother never got along. Honestly, I don’t really like her because
she has always been sneaky. One day, when I was a baby, she came to visit
and came across the identification bracelet from the hospital. It had my real mom’s name on it so she got
suspicious, but didn’t say anything at the time. She went to the hospital and did some research
to find out what had happened. That’s how she learned that my fake mom
had lost her baby. She is so evil that she kept this to herself
all this time, but used it against my fake mom years later. My fake grandmother had been living in a nursing home for some time, and she wasn’t happy about it. When my fake mom went to visit her, she said she hated it there, and told her that she wanted to live with her, but my fake mom said no They had a huge fight and my fake grandmother
called the police and told them everything to get revenge. Right now, I’m not allowed
to see my fake family. I mean, my fake mom is in prison and she’ll
be there for another 4 years. She may not be my biological mom, she may have stolen me, but she’s the one who me up brought. I told you, I miss her a lot and I’m sure
she misses me too. I’m so confused. I don’t feel anything towards my real mom
and dad. I feel bad saying this but I feel like I had
a better family and lived a nicer life, thanks to my fake mom. I wish the truth never came out. I wish I could go back to how things used
to be. But there is nothing I can do. I have to focus on my future. I’m waiting until I turn 18. I’m going to leave my real family
as soon as I can. I want to live with my fake mom when she gets
out of jail no matter what it takes. I won’t accept anything else. I’ve been referring to her as my fake mom
but I don’t feel like that at all. To me, she is my real mom and I’m her one
and only daughter. Thank you so much for listening to my story. If you want to share your own story, send
it to the email address in the description box. Bye.
