Separated @ Birth: A True Love Story of Twin Sisters Reunited

by Anais Bordier

  After dinner, it was time for us to do the DNA test, “live” and together. “I’m gonna brush my teeth and be right back,” I told Sam. (Turns out Sam and I both have a penchant for brushing our teeth several times a day!)

  “It’s like Christmas!” Sam said, unwrapping her envelope that had come from the lab. She started getting silly and put it on her head, and I did the same. I think we were both so anxious that we were trying to add some levity to the business of proving we were twins. Spiritually and emotionally, we were already there.

  Sam and I were both nervous. At least the task at hand was simple—all we had to do was each collect a small amount of saliva from the inside of our cheek with our swab, then put what we had collected on the card provided and wait until it dried.

  The instructions weren’t complicated, but the results were so profoundly important that both us were very anxious about getting started. What if the slightest error in sample collecting made the whole trajectory from start to result go horribly wrong? I took it very seriously when Sam said, “Make sure you don’t touch the little circles, because it says in the instructions that you have to use the swab, and swab your mouth on both sides, and press it onto the circles for like twenty to thirty seconds . . .”

  I was beginning to feel self-conscious with my friends staring at me, like when your parents are watching you at Christmas as they try to see your reaction to a gift they’ve given you. Four months earlier, I hadn’t known Sam existed. Now we were four swabs away from being long-lost sisters touched by a miracle. My friends still thought the swabbing was unnecessary.

  “Honestly,” Marie said as Sam and I did our one-two-three-GO! “You guys really don’t need the test. You are just the same. You even make the same faces.”

  Sam and I talked about a lot of other things we had in common. Both of us had had our wisdom teeth removed before they had even erupted, we could both raise one eyebrow, and we had the same fat big toe. We hated leaving the house without brushing our teeth, no matter how many times a day that might be, we had a phobia about being touched by the shower curtain, and we both preferred Coke to Pepsi! We each had a Napoleon complex and needed to sleep ten hours to promote our creativity and eat the rest of the day. Also, when either of us gets overwhelmed, we take a nap. These things were not going to come up on our DNA test.

  We absolutely had the same sense of humor, too, although Sam was even more of a prankster than I am. “What if on the space to mark ‘sex,’ I wrote ‘YES’?” she joked, borrowing from Austin Powers. We even goofed around about switching the names on the samples. Sam invented a scenario for us if we went onto one of those less-than-dignified American talk shows to get our results in front of a live audience. “The host comes out to the side, and he’s like, ‘And the results are . . . YOU ARE NOT TWINS’ and everyone is like ‘OHHHH!’” We both knew that wouldn’t be the case, but what if it was? I couldn’t even fathom the disappointment I would feel, and it would all be captured on camera.

  The truth was that I really liked the idea of having a sister. I had grown up as an only child, and having a sibling was what I dreamed about most. Almost everybody I knew had brothers and sisters. I didn’t care which sex my sibling was, brother or sister. It was always changing. Sometimes, I wished I had an older brother, because he would protect me, or I could date his friends. But sometimes I wanted an older sister, so she could show me how to dress up and put on makeup. Or I wished for a little sister, so I could show those very things to her. I had a best friend, Jonathan, who is still one of my best friends. He is thirteen months younger than I, and he is my frère de coeur, “a brother of the heart,” like what Americans call a “blood brother.” He’s like my little brother, and has been for close to twenty years. He only had a mum—no brothers, sisters, or father. We were each other’s siblings at heart.

  Most of the time in my childhood, I wasn’t that lonely without people my age at home. I had friends and activities, and hanging out with older family at holidays was fine, as I loved them all. But I was always expected to behave like an adult. Plus, old people just thought in very old ways. They didn’t think the way I did or relate to my point of view. Older people were always living in the past. With Sam, I had a sister and a comrade. And she came with brothers, but I would have to discover more about them later.

  Now it was time to seal our packages and ready them for posting. We had just signed off on our witnesses—mine were Marie and Lucas, and Sam had Ryan—when all of a sudden, Sam stood up and put her hand over her heart. “Ready, Anaïs?” she asked me. She started to recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States.

  “Nonnn!” Marie shouted at her. “We don’t do that!” Marie, Lucas, and I began to sing “La Marseillaise,” the national anthem of France.

  “Nooooo!” I could hear Sam shouting back, trying to do the Pledge louder than “La Marseillaise.” I think we won, because we were three against one, and we were singing really loudly. Lucas had to leave, so Sam, Marie, and I were left to discuss what would be a good place in London for us to get our results, now that our tests were sealed away. We were trying to think of someplace exotic or clever. Marie put forward someplace famous, like in front of Westminster Abbey, which made Sam think of Buckingham Palace. Marie topped that with her suggestion of the London Eye. “You get to the top, top, top, and when you can see all of London, that’s when you should get the results,” she said.

  Sam and I nixed that idea. We didn’t like Ferris wheels—another thing we had in common. We didn’t care if Marie thought our fear would be mitigated by the fact that the Eye went so slowly. What would really go slowly was waiting for the results of the DNA test. We had launched our sisterhood already, but everybody likes to have her proof. We left open where in London we’d do it. We still had a few weeks to decide that. It was just fun to run ideas, because it made everything seem that much more inevitable.

  10

  SAM

  our numbers match

  Wednesday, April 24, another ordinary day, except that I had just swabbed my cheek the night before to see if I had a DNA match with a person who had grown up across the world. Taking a DNA test felt like such a strange thing to do. It was this big moment in my life, and yet, it was just Wednesday. It was really intense, and not intense, all at the same time. On the outside, it was like any other hump day, with me running around L.A., but inside my brain was cranking. I am not sure how Anaïs felt about it. She seemed to have a much more casual attitude. I mean, we were doing this DNA test that would affect the rest of our lives, and while I sat nervously waiting on Skype, she insisted on first sitting down with her friends to a dinner that lasted almost forty-five minutes—so French. I now understand it was her way of coping with the intensity of the situation, but at the time, I thought it was odd, if not downright rude. I guess the French don’t give up feeding and socializing for anything.

  Sometimes, when I was by myself, driving around L.A., I’d panic, fearing the worst. I’d be in my RAV4, blasting Justin Timberlake’s “Mirrors,” the song Anaïs and I had made a split-screen video to. I’d see Anaïs and me dancing around—each in our own apartments, but dancing wildly like children without cares or inhibitions. We were experiencing everything in virtual reality, but the moments were times I would never forget. I was sometimes afraid that all our shared joy would be for nothing if our fairy tale ended.

  My nervousness would disappear as soon as I’d see Anaïs on Skype again. Each time we talked, it became more and more obvious that we were bonded in some inexplicable way—a way that wasn’t like what I had with my brothers. It felt like something much more. I never had a sister, but when Anaïs came into my life, I believed that this was what having a sister would feel like.

  Despite my moments of anxiety, I very quickly realized that no matter the outcome of the test, we would be lifelong friends. It seemed like I had climbed mountains with her already.

  At the moment, I
just wanted to get to London. We weren’t going to have the results until I got there—I know, a weird choice to wait until then. Most people weighing in thought we should confirm it first before spending all the time, money, and emotional investment. But, I had to meet my other hobbit-like half and get the results with her sitting next to me. Our friends were already convinced we were identical twins, because not only did we look so much alike, we had the same mannerisms. We both liked the same things, and our thought processes were kind of similar. She liked to say random, weird things and make strange jokes, just like me. The idea of having a French twin was pretty appealing, too. I had always wanted to go to France, and now I had a reason. Not that I particularly thought French people were cool—I thought they were a pretentious, smelly, cigarette-smoking people. But I especially wanted to go to the Riviera, where French people with their hairy armpits walked around topless on the gorgeous beaches. I also imagined cobblestoned streets filled with mimes, bicycles, and baguettes . . . but first I had to get to London.

  The day after I mailed my DNA packet, I had a really strange dream about Anaïs. In the dream, her friend Marie had just cooked us an amazing pasta dish without ever putting the pasta in hot water. Anaïs was walking down the street, signaling for me to follow her. Suddenly, she started to change, looking less and less like me as she walked away. All of our friends were looking at us out of big glass windows. The scene was kind of beachy, with old gas lampposts, but it was also combined with elements of my childhood neighborhood in Verona. I followed Anaïs for a while, until she stopped. When I finally caught up to her, she turned around and didn’t look like me anymore. It was haunting. It was as if all the fears of mine throughout the day were playing out in my dreams/nightmares. My concern about whether or not I had a twin, or if I needed to pair a twin with a decent meal, was hitting me hard. The relief I felt when I woke up was palpable. Already, I had learned so much from Dr. Segal. Since my first visit, I had gone to see her several more times. I had so many questions for her. She showed me a few reunion tapes of other reared-apart twins she had studied over the years. Dr. Segal also showed me all of her work and research. She went over a couple of the studies she had conducted, including one she had coauthored in 2008 with a behavioral specialist named Yoon-Mi Hur from Chonnam National University in South Korea. The subjects were Korean twin sisters raised apart, one in South Korea and the other in the United States. Although their story was extremely similar to ours—if it turned out Anaïs and I were twins—one of the girls had been raised by her own birth family in South Korea, and the other by her adoptive family in the United States. The twins’ biological parents already had two children, a four-year-old and a ten-month-old, and could only afford to keep one of the twins. The other baby was surrendered to foster care on the day of birth and adopted by an East Coast couple two months later. Both families stayed in touch via letters, facilitated by social workers in South Korea, so both sisters always knew they had a twin. The girls began direct contact with each other when they were twelve and met for the first time when they were seventeen.

  Dr. Segal’s study found some interesting similarities in the two girls. For example, both sisters hated fish, even though fish was a staple in South Korea; both were extremely musical, with one playing piano and the other violin; and they both had identical IQ scores, even though they had been raised in different cultures and with different educational exposure.

  The scenario of one twin staying with the family and one being adopted was really upsetting. I couldn’t imagine having to deal with that. What would I feel if I knew I was given away, but my twin was kept with our birth family? How would the family feel? Guilty? Also, how about the later emotions of the one who was not good enough, the one who was given up? But then again, what if I was the one kept with the family? Why should I be chosen to be kept with the family? And what about our mother? This was so much more haunting than thinking about my situation with Anaïs. In our case, we were equals, both given up by our birth mother. But, our equality ended when we went to our adoptive homes. I had feelings of guilt that I had the better deal. Anaïs was raised as an only child, but I grew up with two older brothers, and why was I so fortunate? I hadn’t even met Anaïs, and I already wanted to tell her I would have switched positions with her in a heartbeat if it would have made her feel better.

  From Dr. Segal’s studies, I found out just how fascinating twins are, whether they are raised together or apart. Before I knew better, I always tended to think twins were just really creepy. It could have been the idea of having a blood relative that similar freaked me out, but identical twins especially were completely uncanny. In Dr. Segal’s book Entwined Lives: Twins and What They Tell Us About Human Behavior, published by Dutton in May 1999, she talks about the genetic influences that affect every person’s character. According to her, genetics play a role in sociability, IQ, athletic ability, career choice, job satisfaction, and personality.

  In twins, Dr. Segal has the best possible subjects to explore genetics and human behavior. Some of her focuses are competition, cooperation, and bonding, traits I looked forward to exploring with Anaïs. The bonding that was already going on between us, two strangers really, was remarkable, and I was excited to learn more. Could Anaïs be just as strange as me? Would she like to eat cheese? Did her feet smell? I was already an anthropology nerd, so I was really into the concept of nature vs. nurture. If Anaïs and I could bond as strongly as we had over the Internet, what would it be like in person? In our text messaging, we could communicate using only emoticons for pages on end. What would we possibly be saying to each other after we met?

  As for Dr. Segal’s study of twins separated at birth, she had been on the cutting edge of many high-profile and important studies. Early in her career, she had participated in the landmark University of Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart, a comprehensive research project on genetic influences in humans. The study was initiated by Dr. Thomas Bouchard, a professor of psychology and director of the Minnesota Center for Twin and Family Research at the University of Minnesota. This was the most extensive research to show that nature (genetics) as well as nuture (environment) affects someone’s personality and psychological traits. Until this study, the assumption was someone’s upbringing and environment were the major components of his personality and behavior. It didn’t discount the importance of role models and parenting, but it showed a person’s behavior might just be genetically driven.

  Dr. Bouchard had launched his study in 1979, when he learned of a set of identical twins, Jim Springer and Jim Lewis, who had been separated soon after birth and reunited thirty-nine years later. He read about the men’s reunion in a newspaper and was intrigued by the astonishing number of similarities outlined in the story. Both men had been christened “James” by their parents; both had childhood dogs named Toy; both had married women named Linda, whom they divorced, and remarried women named Betty; one had named his first son James Allen, the other James Alan (the same first and middle names, albeit spelled differently); both had police training and worked part-time with law-enforcement agencies; both men were nail biters; and both had identical smoking and drinking habits, with both smoking Salem cigarettes and drinking Miller beer. The ability to study identical twins reared by different families enabled Dr. Bouchard to observe shared mannerisms that were likely genetic.

  Dr. Bouchard and his “Jim Twins,” as the men came to be known, attracted enormous attention and publicity. It was a time in American psychology where genetic influence was actually unpopular. Not many people explored the blend of genetic and environmental influences on behavior, but Dr. Bouchard’s study of this one set of reared-apart twins created such interest that many reared-apart twins started contacting him. What began as just a small examination of a couple of pairs of identical twins grew into a full-blown study of more than 130 sets of twins, both identical and fraternal, who had been adopted and raised apart. In most of the cases, the subjects had not known they
had a twin somewhere until much later in their lives.

  When the study began, Dr. Segal was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, where she was also studying twins. She had found a pair of identical twins separated at birth in her research, and she referred them to Dr. Bouchard. In 1982, she joined Dr. Bouchard as a postdoctoral fellow, and eventually she became the assistant director of the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart. She did everything from contacting twins, to analyzing data, to handling the twins’ arrangements while they were in Minnesota. She described the experience as “heaven on earth,” and credited Dr. Bouchard’s success with the study to his brilliance, charm, and engaging personality.

  The Minnesota Twin Project went on for twenty years, from 1979 to 1999. The data collected was mind-blowing. Dr. Segal said the information gathered was so extensive there is still a treasure trove of data not yet analyzed. Some of the commonalities the twins in the study shared with each other seemed impossible, except they were true. One really interesting pair was Oskar Stohr and Jack Yufe. They were born in the early 1930s in British Trinidad to a Romanian father and a German mother. When they were six months old, their parents split. The mother took Oskar back to Germany, where his grandmother raised him in the Catholic faith and where he participated in the Hitler Youth. Jack, who remained with his father in the Caribbean, was raised Jewish and spent part of his growing-up years on an Israeli kibbutz, and was a member of the Israeli Navy.

  When the men met in their early twenties, the first time since infancy, they failed to find common ground or any reason to forge a relationship. They spoke different languages, German and Yiddish; they had no commonality in politics or religion; and they didn’t particularly like each other. Although they wrote letters once in a while, the two didn’t see each other again for twenty-five years, until Jack read something about the Minnesota study of twins and called to see if he and his brother could participate. From the moment the two men met at the airport, the uncanny similarities between them began to emerge. They were both wearing wire-rimmed glasses, their shirts both had two pockets and epaulets, and they both had mustaches.