EXCLUSIVE - 'I felt sick. It was like looking at myself in the mirror': The moment two girls switched at birth learned the terrible truth on Facebook 24 YEARS after shocking hospital mix-up

• Lorena Cobuzzi and Antonella Zenga were given to the wrong mothers in the maternity unit 26 years ago
• They were brought up just two miles apart in the small town of Trinitapoli in Puglia, Italy
• Lorena enjoyed a happy, stable childhood with warm and loving parents
• Antonella's upbringing was difficult, abandoned by her mum and adopted
• Parents learned truth when they saw photo of Antonella on Facebook
• Found she was born on same day at same hospital and ordered DNA test 

By Hannah Roberts In Puglia For Mailonline

Published: 03:18 EST, 4 August 2015 | Updated: 08:36 EST, 4 August 2015

In a maternity ward in 1989 in Puglia, the ‘heel’ of Italy’s boot, two babies were born by Caesarean section, just 11 minutes apart.

The two girls, Lorena and Antonella, were taken to the nursery and labelled with bracelets consecutively numbered 47 and 48, before being given to their mothers, who smiled as they looked at their baby daughters for the first time.

But unbeknown to the two women, who had been knocked out with anaesthetic for the birth, the babies they were given were not their own... and everyone's lives were set on dramatically different paths.

Lorena had been given to Caterina and Michele Cobuzzi. Antonella had been handed to Loreta and Luigi Mazzone.   

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Lost identity: Lorena, (pictured right with biological sister, Elisa, left) was brought up by the wrong parents for 24 years. The people she thought were her parents said they had something important to tell her two years ago

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Idyllic childhood: A picture of Caterina and Michele Cobuzzi holding Lorena who they thought was their daughter and their son Francesco on a beach holiday

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Striking similarities: Lorena (pictured right) at her first communion looks almost identical to her real mother, Loreta Mazzone (pictured left). She was brought up by the Cobuzzis, in a happy, stable childhood

Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, one of those babies, Lorena told how, 24 years on, she was given the deeply distressing news by the Cobuzzis - the two people she thought were her parents - that she was not their real daughter.

‘I felt physically sick’, said Lorena, now 26, remembering the moment she was told the truth two years ago at the family home.

‘They sat me down and told me they had something important to tell me. They said there had been two families at the hospital that day. They said the babies had been swapped.’

‘The feeling was terrible - I didn’t know who I was anymore. I didn’t know who to call mum and dad.’

What Lorena has never got to the bottom of is how the Cobuzzis discovered she was not their real daughter.

They told her they had seen a photo of the other girl Antonella and were struck by how much she looked like Caterina.

In the same photograph the couple noted that Antonella was next to another girl, Elisa, who Antonella thought was her sister - but looked like Lorena.

The photo is said to have been from Facebook, although the Cobuzzis told Lorena they had contacted her biological mother Loreta and asked for a family photo. 

‘Antonella, who has naturally curly hair, looked exactly like my official mother, Caterina. While Elisa looked exactly like me. It was like seeing myself in a photo,’ Lorena said.

It is thought that the Cobuzzis may have had their suspicions that Lorena was not their daughter and had decided to investigate.

But the couple have never told her how they came to wonder that she might not be their daughter. 

Once they had seen the photo and established the girls shared a birthday at the same Canosa Hospital, they got a DNA test which proved Antonella was their biological daughter.

As a result of the maternity ward mix up, both girls and their families are suing the Italian health authorities for a combined €22 million.

Lorena’s lawyer, Stefano di Feo told MailOnline: ‘It’s the first case of this kind. Of course babies have been swapped accidentally at hospitals before. But this is the first time anyone has found out after 24 years.’

The two sets of parents initially went home with their newborns just a few miles apart the same small town of Trinitapoli in Puglia near Bari, with a population of just 15,000 on the Adriatic coast.

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Carbon copy: Antonella Zenga (left) looks just like her biological mother Caterina (pictured right)

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Happy childhood: Lorena told MailOnline she feels lucky to have been swapped at birth and brought up by Cobuzzis, who gave her a stable and happy home

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Mix up: Lorena was brought up by MIchele and Caterina Cobuzzi. Here she is pictured with who she thought were her grandparents

Caterina and Michele Cobuzzi took Lorena home. And Loreta and Luigi took Antonella with them.  

But although they lived in close proximity, the girls' lives were worlds apart.

Lorena had a happy childhood being brought up with her older brother Francesco by the Cobuzzis, who are a well-adjusted and loving couple.

They ran a small electronics shop and, although there was not much money to go around, they were a close-knit family and gave Lorena stability growing up.

They are Catholics and brought up their two children to be religious.

Antonella fared less well. Her parents had an unhappy marriage and they eventually split up. Antonella grew up with her older brother, Fidele, and younger sister, Elisa.

The woman she believed was her mother, Loreta, 'hardly ever called the little girl by her name but used swearwords instead and abuse of every kind', it is alleged.

The Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno reported that the family were so destitute that there was often nothing to eat.

Antonella was allegedly forced to share a bed with Fidele, who suffered from diabetes and during the night would wet the bed. Even then the sheets would not be changed, the newspaper said.

After their father Luigi left to live with his new girlfriend, their mother Loreta abandoned the three children and moved to Turin.

Antonella and her two siblings were cared for by their grandparents.

When she was 16 in 2005, Antonella and Elisa were put up for adoption because their elderly grandparents could not cope. Her brother, Fidele, stayed with them because of his condition.

Antonella and Elisa were adopted by the Zengas, a couple who lived in the town of Foggia, an hour away. Antonella now considers the Zangas as her parents, according to court documents.

Lorena told MailOnline she feels fortunate to have grown up in a stable environment avoiding the upheaval and rejection that Antonella suffered.

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Wedding: In 2013 Lorena married pizzeria worker Antonio, but her parents - the Cobuzzis - didn't approve of the relationship and shunned the ceremony

She said: ‘I feel lucky in a sense to have been swapped and grown up in a normal loving family. She had to deal with her parents separating, then leaving her, then being adopted. So, yes, I feel fortunate that I didn’t have to go through all that.’

She and Antonella have seen each other only once, when the fate that could have been hers struck her strongly.

Antonella had gone round to the Cobuzzis' house to spend time with them, after both girls had already learnt the truth about their parentage.

‘We didn’t speak. It was so strange. Because for our entire lives she should have been in my place. And I should have been in her place.’

Growing up, Lorena said she never suspected that she someone else’s daughter.

‘I never had any doubts. A few times people pointed out that I didn’t look like anyone in the family. But no one ever gave it any weight. Lots of people don’t look like their parents and take their looks from a grandmother or whatever.’

‘I always got on well with my elder brother Francesco. We had a typical jokey brother-sister relationship, teasing each other. And I got on well with my parents. We fought about stupid things like doing my homework but never anything important.’

Then, aged 17, the relationship deteriorated when she started dating a man her parents did not approve of, now her husband, Antonio.

‘He is 12-years-older, much older than me. They tried to stop us seeing each other. So when I was still at school I left and moved in with his family,’ she explained.

In 2010 the young couple argued with his parents and had to leave.

Tragically, they ended up on the street with nowhere to go. Lorena said she asked her parents – the Cobuzzis - for money, but they refused. The couple were forced to sleep in their car for a week before they eventually managed to find a place to stay. ‘No one would help us’, she remembered. 

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Bouncing baby: A picture taken of Lorena Cobuzzi at her christening when her parents believed that she was their daughter

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Cuddling up: A picture of Lorena as a baby with the boy she grew up with thinking was her 'brother', Francesco

In 2013 the couple married. But the Cobuzzis still had not come around to the relationship.

‘They said I was too young and should wait. But I did it anyway. They didn’t come to the wedding, which was really sad for me. My-father-in law had to walk me to the altar.’

It was around this time two years ago that Lorena was told the truth by the Corbuzzis. 

According to legal documents filed with the court of Bari, after she was told, Lorena ‘fell in a state of deep frustration and regret with respect to those who from birth she had thought of as her natural parents, who suddenly after very many years let her know of “a medical mistake”, which had marked the fate of the two families.

She ‘suffered psychological damage seen in the damage of her existential being and her quality of life which is now marked by states of unhappiness with traumatic effects on her daily life,’ the court documents state.

Lorena has had the added trauma of having to watch as the people she once called mum and dad have embraced their new daughter Antonella and welcomed her into the family.

She has been hurt by the speed at which they have grown attached to Antonella.

‘They are very close. It’s painful for me. I know she has been to our house. She has a relationship with my brother just like mine. This year she spent our joint birthday with them and they didn’t invite me. I was alone with my husband.’

Today they have an uneasy relationship, said Lorena, who described it as ‘a bit cold’ - and they haven’t given her the answers she needs. 

‘It turned out they had asked Loreta, my biological mother, for the photo of Antonella and Elisa, Lorena explained.

‘I still don’t know why they asked for that photo. I don’t know if they always had doubts. Maybe someone said something.’

While the bond she had with her own family has diminished she has been getting to know her ‘new family’.

At first she couldn’t find her biological mother, Loreta, because she had moved away.

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Happy families: A recent photo of Antonella Zenga. Antonella has got closer and closer to her natural parents - the Cobuzzis - since 2013, when they discovered that she is their real daughter

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Swapped at birth: Antonella Zenga (left) with Elisa (centre), and Fidele (right), whom she thought were her real brother and sister

She soon met her father - they embraced immediately and she met his new family. But she most wanted to meet her mother - the person ‘who brought her into the world’.

When she finally met her it was ‘emotional’, she explained. ‘We both started crying. She is like me - very affectionate and warm.’ Within a few months she was calling her biological parents “Mum” and “Dad” although she still calls the Cobuzzis the same names as well.

One happy outcome of the appalling discovery has been the bond she has developed with Elisa, the sister she never had. 

‘It was amazing to meet her because I never had a sister before. We look so similar. Then there are strange coincidences. We are both with older men who make pizza for a living. Then we are both very outgoing and warm whereas Antonella is a bit reserved. We speak all the time-we are close.’

Incredibly, the girls discovered that they had once played together as little girls at a mutual friend’s house when Lorena was 11 and Elisa was six. ‘But I could never have imagined that little girl we played with was my sister’, she said.

Next month a court in Bari will decide which health authority she can sue for damages. Lorena needs a DNA test, which costs around Euros 1,000 but can’t afford it, although Antonella has had one, which confirmed the swap.

Her husband works just three or four months a year in a pizzeria where he is paid Euro 800 a month. When they receive damages, they would like to open a pizzeria of their own and start their own family.

‘We will use the money for a better life,’ she said. ‘But when I have children I’ll be very watchful in hospital so they don’t make any more mistakes’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3182310/I-felt-sick-like-looking-mirror-moment-two-girls-switched-birth-learned-terrible-truth-Facebook-24-YEARS-shocking-hospital-mix-up.html#ixzz3hrBAaX1Y
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