Twins Separated at Birth Reunited on Live Television
Lifestyle
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A set of Chinese twins who had been adopted by separate American families met for the first time this week live on Good Morning America, and it all came from a Christmas wish.
10-year-old Audrey Doering asked her adoptive parents, Jennifer and Tom Doering of Wisconsin, for a sister as a Christmas gift. While that obviously wasn’t practical, Jennifer began researching her daughter’s past to try and give her knowledge about her history. She and Tom had adopted Audrey from China in 2007 without knowing much about her past outside of the fact that the girl had a heart ailment that would require surgery.
Jennifer Doering brought in a Chinese researcher to assist her, and the two made a jaw-dropping discovery: a photograph of baby Audrey with her Chinese foster mother — and another baby who looked exactly Audrey.
Jennifer explained to GMA, “As soon as I had that picture, I was desperate to find out... who that other child was.”
Further research led her to discover that Audrey did in fact have a twin sister who was also adopted and brought to America.
“Oh, it was unbelievable. I’m like, ‘How?’ I mean, this is stuff you read about,” Doering continued. “And how, how could it really be that there are two of them?”
Using the information she had, Doering used Facebook to track down the Rainsberry family of Washington state, including their adoptive daughter — and Audrey’s twin sister — Gracie. After contact was made, the two families began Facetiming.
After 10 years and several calls, the sisters finally met in person on yesterday’s Good Morning America as seen in the video above. After airing a package on their story, Audrey Doering and Gracie Rainsberry finally met face to face in a beautiful way. The girls, dressed in matching pink and black outfits, practically collapsed into each other’s arms in tears. After everyone calmed down, they spoke about the situation.
Audrey explained,”I thought my parents were, like, playing a joke on me.” For her part, Gracie said, “I was, like … started to cry a lot, and my mom kept on asking me…what my crying was for, and I was saying, ‘I don’t know, I didn’t know what to think.”
Gracie said meeting her sister in person for the first time was overwhelming, while Audrey added, “It felt like there was somebody missing. Now, it’s complete.”
At the end of the interview, GMA surprised the families with tickets to the Broadway production of School of Rock, dinner at Planet Hollywood, and several airplane tickets so they can visit each other.
