Baby swapped at birth in El Salvador is reunited with Texas parents

It was the homecoming the Cushworth family should have had a long time ago. Mercy and Rich Cushworth are finally able to bring their one-year-old son, Moses, home to Dallas, Texas.

In May 2015, Mercy gave birth to Moses in El Salvador, the country where she is originally from. She was handed a baby in the hospital after the birth — a baby she was told was her son Moses. Mercy would later discover that Moses had been switched at birth, with another baby boy. But it took months of suspicion, a DNA test, and thousands of dollars spent in court before Moses could come home.

"Everyday the thought came to my heart, to my mind, while I was nursing him, 'What if this is not my baby?'" Mercy tells As It Happens host Carol Off. "I thought I was betraying my baby and I was having all these negative thoughts about him."

Moments after he was born, Mercy says she remembers seeing Moses and noticing the striking resemblance he had to her husband. But the next morning, when the nurse brought Moses back to her, he looked different.

"When I got him, immediately, I thought this is not the same child that I saw last night," Mercy recalls.

She protested, telling the nurse, pediatrician and gynecologist that there had been a mistake.

"Everybody said, 'No, no, no. This is your baby. Everything is okay,'" Mercy explains. "I said, 'Well, it's only a thought. This really is not happening to me — so I just let it go like that and I went home with the baby."

Over the next two months, Mercy stayed in El Salvador bonding with the baby like it was her own. But the week before she left, Mercy was overcome with doubt and went to a private hospital for a DNA test.

"I cried the whole time. I thought I was betraying my baby," Mercy remembers. "I thought to myself, 'Wow, what kind of mother am I, doing this?' But I couldn't resist the thought — what if this is not my son?"

Back in Dallas, she received the results of the test. There was 0.0 per cent chance that she was the mother of the child.

"I fell on the floor," Mercy explains. "I started to think who's baby is this and how am I going to let him go? He's mine. He's my son and then immediately the same thought, the same pain, I started to think where's my son?"

Overwhelmed, Mercy says she prayed that her biological son was safe and took a flight to El Salvador the next morning. She went to the attorney general's office and hired a lawyer to investigate her case. The hospital was ordered to call all the women that had given birth that day and each took a DNA test. Twelve days later, they found a match for Moses, as well as Jacob, the baby Mercy was told was her own.

"I woke up in the morning with one baby and I went to sleep with another baby," Mercy explains, struggling to describe the bittersweet moment."That pain, that hurt, is like when you lose a child. But at the same time, when I went there, I saw my baby, he was there and that was the biggest joy of my life."

Mercy says she still thinks about Jacob every day but after months of legal work, renewing birth certificates, passports and visas, she feels blessed that Moses is finally at home in Dallas, Texas. Jacob is now with his parents in El Salvador.

"Moses is very happy, since the first day," Mercy explains. "He's doing very good. He's starting to give his first steps."

The Government of El Salvador is still conducting an official investigation in the case.