Two Sets of Parents Learn Adopted Daughters Are Actually Twins
Down through the decades, movies have mined the idea of secret twins for all its worth. Films such as “Twins,” “The Prestige,” and “The Parent Trap” have featured the idea as the centerpiece of their plots.
It’s no wonder why Hollywood finds the convention compelling. There’s a lot of drama inherent in the idea that you might find a mysterious stranger out in the world who looks just like you.
But it’s not just a component in a story, relegated to fiction. At least two families have lived through that experience in real life.
According to The Guardian, the story started in the Chinese city of Yangzhou. Over the space of a single week, a pair of twins showed up abandoned in the metropolis.
Sadly, that isn’t an uncommon occurrence in some parts of the world. But what was unexpected was how they ended up reunited.
One of the twin girls was adopted by Douglas and Holly Funk in the Chicago area. They named her Mia Diamond Funk, and Holly later revealed that God had told her to name the little girl “Mia.”
The other girl ended up becoming part of the family of Diana Ramirez of Pembroke Pines, Florida. Ramirez also named her little girl Mia, not knowing that her daughter’s twin lived across the country.
That all changed when Holly began browsing a website intended for parents who’d adopted from the Yangzhou Children’s Welfare Institute. She saw a post from Ramirez, who was celebrating her Mia’s birthday.
On The Oprah Winfrey Show, Holly told Oprah that she wrote to Ramirez, telling her “Diana, I have a Mia also, and she’s going to be 3 on the 13th of June.”
The women began to correspond, and the stories they swapped made them wonder if something more than coincidence was at play with their daughters’ striking similarities. “We found out that they had the same name, and they were both three years old,” Holly said.
“We swapped pictures, and they looked so much alike. Then we found out they were found at the same spot.”
The families also conducted DNA tests, which showed they shared an 85% chance of being sisters. That was the highest possible probability the test could determine given that they didn’t have info on the girls’ parentage.
“It has to be a miracle of God,” Douglas Funk said. “What are the odds that of all the people in China these two are sisters?
“What are the chances of the two of them getting together to find each other? It’s amazing.”
The girls first met in 2006 and have continued to meet, their respective parents making a pact to try to keep them in touch. “It’s a little bit of a distance, but whenever we can, we’ll get together,” Ramirez said.
“It’s like an in-law situation with the Ramirezes and us, we’re going to be family,” Holly said. “We plan on letting them get to know each other.”
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