The two girls were born in China and separated shortly after birth. They found out about each other's existence much later in the US, and when they met, it was an emotionally charged reunion.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on October 18, 2019. It has since been updated.
People love Christmas for the surprises it brings for them, especially children. However, what if the surprise you receive is so big that it changes your life completely? Would you be overwhelmed or shocked or just excited about it?
In an incident that seems more likely from a movie, a pair of twins who were separated at birth in their home country China and adopted by two different families in the USA were reunited for the first time on the TV show Good Morning America (GMA). The identical twins were living hundreds of miles apart before being told that they have a sister.
Audrey Doering from Wisconsin and Gracie Rainsberry from Washington state were in tears as they met for the first time and embraced each other. They had been separated shortly after birth. Audrey told ABC News that she had asked her adoptive parents for a sister for Christmas this year. However, she never realized that she would actually get one. After the siblings met, Gracie said that she was happy and excited about gaining a sister.
"It's very overwhelming," she said, while Audrey said, "It felt like there was somebody missing. Now, it's complete." Audrey did not believe her parents initially when they broke the news to her.
"I thought my parents were, like, playing a joke on me," she said. Audrey's mother, Jennifer, had been researching about her adopted daughter's past when she found out about her twin sister, according to GMA. With the help of a researcher in China, she tracked down Gracie and got in touch with her family.
Jennifer added that everything about the two girls was the same.
"I mean, everything was the same. The same hair, the same glasses, the same outfits," Jennifer added. It was later found that both talk alike, are athletic, like math and like pizza, French fries, and pasta.
When her daughter spoke to her twin on video chat for the first time her initial thought was that it was herself. Gracie felt overwhelmed in the initial moment that she found out.
The two children met for the first time in 2017 and a year later, after making many efforts to become a part of each other's lives they were still at a loss of words about what happened to them. Since then their families met four times, visited Sea World together, and ensured that the girls spent their 11th birthday together, according to Hello.
"I'm not sure how to explain it," Gracie told ABC News. "Getting to have her is like ... having another part of me," she added. The sisters speak to each other at least every other day. "The best thing is we get to spend time together and we get to know each other," Audrey said.
Both of them have a heart condition and have undergone at least one surgery for it. They are also part of loving families and have siblings who are not biological. Audrey said her favorite memory of them since they met was "probably when we went boogie-boarding in San Diego." "It was one of the first times we actually bonded as sisters," she added.
They now have a YouTube channel where they upload videos about their life.
References:
https://www.hellomagazine.com/celebrities/2018011245391/one-year-update-chinese-twins-reunited/
https://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/twin-sisters-separated-birth-reunite-live-gma/story?id=44693342
