In the days after Daphna Cardinale delivered her second child, she experienced a rare sense of calm and wonder. The feeling was a relief after so much worrying: She and her husband, Alexander, had tried for three years to conceive before turning to in vitro fertilization, and Daphna, once pregnant, had frequent and painful early contractions. But now, miraculously, here was their baby, their perfect baby, May, with black hair plastered on her head.
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Alexander, … wanted to share his wife’s happiness, but instead, he was preoccupied [with] a concern that he was reluctant to voice: May did not look to him like a member of their family…. Alexander often turns to dark humor to mask a simmering anxiety, and in the days after the birth, he started to joke that their I.V.F. clinic had made a mistake.
Trying to ease Alexander’s mind, Daphna ordered a DNA testing kit… [and] in November 2019, they sent DNA samples off to a testing company. Then they waited. Three weeks passed before the results appeared in Alexander’s inbox.
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Alexander opened the email on his phone, as Daphna, holding May, paced around their bedroom. She saw her husband’s face immediately look drawn; his body language registered defeat. He read out loud: “99.9 percent likelihood, not a match for the father.”
