Free Separated @ Birth: A True Love Story of Twin Sisters Reunited by Anais Bordier, Samantha Futerman Page B

1987, my parents first heard about my birth in January 1988.
    To announce my arrival, my father sent bouquets of pink flowers to both my grandmothers with a card that read, “It’s a girl!” My maternal grandmother was working in a small children’s clothing store at the time, and the owner of that shop sent my parents the entire girls’ display from the window. My paternal grandmother, meanwhile, bought every pink item of clothing she could find.
    Then came the scary news. The social worker called my parents to say that the Korean agency had reported that I had a serious birth defect, so serious, in fact, that my parents could refuse me and take the next baby available. My parents were thinking . . . eleven fingers and twelve toes . . . no face . . . half panda. To be certain my parents understood what they were getting into, the agency in Korea sent them three pictures of me, one where I was being held by my fostermother, and two where my arm with the “serious birth defect” was circled and highlighted with arrows. My mother has since been told that this strawberry patch was once considered a sign of bad luck in Korea, but we are not sure if it meant bad luck for the child or the parents, or if this is even the truth. A medical report was forwarded to our pediatrician, and the “serious” defect was nothing more than a raised strawberry patch birthmark, known as a hemangioma, on my left arm. Our doctor assured my parents it would be gone before my second birthday.
    My parents did not delay with the adoption. In my mother’s heart and mind, I was her baby, even if the hemangioma had been problematic. My foster mother wrote my mom and dad a letter in Korean, which the social worker translated and read to them over the phone. It said that I was her first foster child, and that she never put me down, but always carried and cuddled me. She warned them that I had my days and nights confused, and although I would fall asleep eventually, I preferred to be held on her shoulder to do so. How unbelievable to have been loved so much by my first caretaker.
    My parents had a wait of more than two months to finally meet me, so they had time to prepare my nursery, set up my crib, and baby-proof the house. Mom also received her special gift from Dad—whenever a baby arrives in my family, my dad buys Mom a piece of jewelry to commemorate the event. For Matt’s birth in 1982, Mom got a diamond band ring. For Andrew, born in 1985, Dad gave her a diamond necklace. When I was born, she got a gold bangle bracelet with bits of jade and emerald, the green gems chosen to represent Korea.
    On March 21, 1988, my parents, accompanied by mytwo brothers, drove to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to await my arrival. It is so strange to think that only two weeks prior, six time zones away, a French couple was picking up a little Korean girl at Paris’s international airport—a baby born the same day as me.
    Throughout the adoption process, my mother’s motives were transparent—she wanted her third baby, end of story. She hadn’t worried about taking care of a third one, as she already had a supremely supportive, loving family. What my mother didn’t tell me until very recently was that the night before I arrived in New Jersey, she had a major panic attack. Suddenly, she felt guilty that she had subconsciously been “stacking the deck” to ensure herself a daughter. She also feared that bringing me to New Jersey was selfish and not the best choice for me, that she wasn’t as capable of taking care of three young children, that our town would not accept me, that I would have no friends. Overcome with anxiety, she fell to pieces, crying uncontrollably in the shower. She managed to pull herself together for the trip to the airport on very little sleep.
    My parents had informed their families that they wanted the day of my arrival to be private, i.e., no grandparents or other relatives, just the two of them and