Unit 7, Listening 2, Against All Odds, Twin Girls Reunited


Against All Odds, Twin Girls Reunited

Harriet Stern: Over the past 14 years, 45,000 Chinese children have been adopted by American families. So what are the odds that sisters, separated at a very early age, could actually find each other again half a world away? To see Ruby Smith now, a happy eight-year-old who loves gymnastics, you would never know she was once a sad and scared orphan in China.

Emma Smith: She was crying so hard she was turning all red. She was very scared. She’d never seen anyone who looked like us.

Stern:    Emma and her husband, Dan, brought Ruby back to their home in Florida to shower[1] her with love, but they could tell her heart still ached.

Emma Smith: Her sense of loss was just so big, and she was just so afraid to be alone. And at first, I thought it was because in the orphanage she wasn’t alone, but it—it seemed bigger than that.

Stern:    Meanwhile, just outside Philadelphia, Kate Bern, also eight, loves her new home a world away from the orphanage in China. Her parents, Amy and Carl, remember their daughter as a bright little girl.

Amy White:       She was very alert and bright. She was very aware—she was looking around, and she was very aware of what was going on.

Stern:    But Kate also seemed very deprived, because they noticed she ate as if she’d never eat again.

Amy White:       She wouldn’t want to leave the table. All the other kids seemed to eat and be satisfied, but all this food was around her and she wasn’t stopping.

Stern:    Amy sought help from a support group on the Internet, and one of the many who responded was a mom named Emma.

Amy White:       Her answer was the best answer, which was to try sharing a plate in the middle of the table, and we’d both eat from the same plate. It was incredible. It was—it stopped it immediately.

Stern:    These two moms, who lived 1,000 miles apart, noticed their daughters were from the same orphanage and decided to exchange pictures.

So when you opened up her email, do you remember that moment of what that was like when you saw her daughter’s picture?

Amy White:       I—I—I was shocked.

Stern:    The girls had the same hairline, same nose, same chin, same mouth. After exchanging more pictures, they just had to bring their two-year-olds face to face.

Emma Smith: It was . . . it was . . .

Dan Smith:          Amazing!

Emma Smith: Amazing. That’s the word, yeah.

Stern:    What did you think?

Emma Smith: I thought they were twins. Yeah.

Stern:    Amy didn’t believe it, but she did notice the girls seemed to have a special connection.

Amy White:       We have pictures where Ruby has her hand on Kate’s stroller, and Kate would never let even us, like tou—touch the rim of her stroller, but she seemed like there was some kind of comfort level there.

Stern:    But it would be four more years before Ruby and Kate saw each other again, in July 2004, at a reunion of families who had adopted children from the same orphanage.

Dan Smith:          And they never left each other the whole time.

Emma Smith: When Ruby came back to the room she would say things like, “Please don’t tell my best friend at home, but Kate’s my best friend.”

Kate Bern:           Best, best friends.

Ruby Smith:       Sisters!

Stern:    Since the reunion, the families have met three more times. We brought them together again for another visit.

Ruby Smith:       Sometimes me and Kate trade places.

Stern:    What? You play tricks on people?

Kate Bern:           Yeah.

Ruby Smith:       Sometimes I say, “I’m Kate,” and sometimes Kate says, “I’m Ruby.”

Stern:    Do you wish you guys lived closer together?

Kate Bern:           Yeah. I would like to live next door to her, too. To play together, like—or have play dates, like, right after school.

Stern:    Four months ago the families tested their daughters’ DNA.

Amy White:       They were really beginning to consider themselves to be sisters, and I didn’t want them to have false hopes that this was, you know, a relationship that had a biological root and it didn’t.

Stern:    The DNA results: the girls are almost certainly sisters, which means, because they’re the same age, Ruby and Kate, in all probability, are fraternal twins.

Emma Smith: Ruby, she just started jumping up and down and squealing, “Yes, we’re sisters, we’re sisters. Yeah, we’re sisters!”

Stern:    Finally, Emma and Dan understood why their daughter Ruby never liked to be alone.

Emma Smith: She was never alone, not even in the womb. So for her, she needed Kate.

Carl Bern:            Since it’s important to Kate, I think it’s important to all of us.

Stern:    OK, you tell me why—why you love Ruby.

Kate Bern:           Because we hardly ever fight, and we agree on a lot of things.

Stern:    And why do you love Kate?

Ruby Smith:       Because she’s my sister, and I just love her.

Emma Smith: My daughter has—has not asked me a single question about her birth family or searching for them since she’s got Kate in her life.


[1] shower: verb to give someone a lot of something

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