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Separated at birth, united by chance
Thanks to a Web site and DNA tests, two adopted girls named Mia find they have far more in common

By Russell Working
Tribune staff reporter
Published August 20, 2006


The Funk family of west suburban Lyons went to China two years ago to adopt a baby girl who had been abandoned on a sidewalk near a textile factory. They named her Mia.

Last year, the Ramirezes of suburban Miami went to China to adopt a girl who had been abandoned on the same spot a week later. As it happened, they also named her Mia.


This May, Diana Ramirez wrote about her daughter's upcoming birthday on an Internet site for parents who had adopted from the orphanage in Yangzhou.

Holly Funk saw it and wrote back, "Diana, I have a Mia as well and she is almost 3."

A flurry of breathless e-mails followed. Then DNA testing provided evidence of what the families had quickly come to suspect: The girls were fraternal twins, separated hours after their birth.

Friday, the girls were reunited, when Diana and Mia Ramirez flew to O'Hare International Airport.

The girls, whose parents had dressed them identically in Chinese-themed outfits, shyly surveyed each other. Urged a little closer, they finally reached for each other's hand.

"I'm just awed," Holly Funk said as she looked at the tiny girls, a little island in the flow of travelers crowding the luggage claim area. "Grateful to God. To me, it's a divine thing. It's a miracle. In the sea of humanity, these kids found each other."



If it is a miracle, it is one that is increasingly happening to families nationwide as international adoptions abound, the Internet reunites people and DNA technology establishes evidence of blood ties.

Such discoveries--made possible in part by Web groups centered around orphanages--are pulling back the curtains that separated previous generations of adoptees from their past and their biological kin.

The news can change children's lives, linking lost family members and perhaps even providing a lifelong soul mate.

One Web site geared toward linking adoptees with their biological kin is maintained by Jim and Susan Rittenhouse of Lisle. The site has a membership of 137, with 15 sets of twins and seven sets of siblings who have been confirmed. Members have adopted from Cambodia, Nepal, Guatemala, Russia and China.

The Rittenhouses themselves are on the list. In 2004, they discovered that their daughter, now 6, appeared to have a twin sister in Alabama, a matter strongly indicated by DNA tests. These twins also were independently given the same name: Meredith.

"They're best friends, in the deepest sense imaginable," Jim Rittenhouse said. "I didn't believe in twin bonds until I saw these two together."

The relationships provide a fertile area for observation of child development, said Nancy Segal, director of the Twin Studies Center at California State University at Fullerton.

"This offers us a wonderful window into so many questions about nature and nurture," Segal said, "because we can see the perspective unfolding of development in genetically identical and non-identical kids in their different homes."

The story is longer...but WOW!!!