Separated @ Birth: A True Love Story of Twin Sisters Reunited by Anais Bordier, Samantha Futerman Page B
Authors: Anais Bordier, Samantha Futerman
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of peace and quiet.
Exactly one day after my third birthday, we moved to Brussels. My father had taken a job as a general manager at a cosmetics company, with a territory covering Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. My mother threw me a small celebration with a cake at school, but the next day, we were in the car, heading to Belgium. Dad had found us an amazing, beautiful duplex in the center of the city, fifteen minutes from his office. It was two hundred square meters, more than two thousand square feet. The open staircase to the upstairs level scared me, but I loved the terrace that overlooked Cinquantenaire Park. I made my first snowman on that terrace.
My mother loved the apartment, although she hated the move. We didn’t know anybody, and the weather was dreadful. Things got better the following Easter, when all the parents of my preschool friends were renting houses on the North Sea. My mother found a rental for us, too, figuring it was our one chance to make some friends. She was right. We all had a great time in Knokke, a seaside resort about seventy miles northwest of Brussels. She liked our new home better after that.
I liked Brussels from the start. My favorite thing to do was to dress up in costumes, my interest in style manifesting itself early. I especially loved my sequined Harlequin getup, and I would walk around town wearing it as I hauled Baby Gilles on my back in his baby backpack.
My school was friendly and warm. When I learned one of my teachers was having a baby, I was so impressed that I needed to share the news with my mother. “Maman, you will never guess what is in the belly of Madame!” I exclaimed when I got home.
“I guess it’s a baby,” my mum answered.
“Was I in your belly, too?” I asked her in curiosity.
Mum’s answer confused me. “Anaïs, you were always in my heart, but there was another woman who gave birth to you. You were made in another woman.”
“What other woman?” I demanded. How on earth would that work?
“This woman couldn’t be your mother, so she gave you to us,” my mother continued.
I didn’t have any more questions. The concept was too strange, and there was nothing else I could ask.
Not long after that I started to realize what my schoolmates meant when they said, “You don’t look anything like your mother.” They were saying, “She can’t be your mother. She is blond with blue eyes, and you are Chinese.” I still didn’t know what to make of it. One afternoon, I came home from school totally distraught. “Was I abandoned? Did you find me in the garbage?” I asked my mother. I had seen a news story about a baby being found in the garbage in the Philippines on TV, and a boy at school, who had probably seen the same story, said that this is what probably happened to me—I was abandoned in the garbage, and my mother found me there.
“No, Anaïs, you were never abandoned,” my mother assured me. “The woman who gave birth to you, she immediately gave you to us. You were never abandoned. Look, we have a picture of you at four days, right after you were born.”
I didn’t ask any more questions, but this abandonment thing didn’t go away just because my mother shared a picture. This boy had really riled up feelings in me, and I didn’t know what to do or think. I loved my mother more than anybody, but who was this other mother she was talking about? And why wasn’t I with her?
For the first time, I felt really lonely inside. I tried to appear like I was taking the information in stride, but I had a pain that was hard to describe. It still stays with me to this day. No matter how I looked at it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had gone wrong at the very start of my life. My birth mother couldn’t keep me, so I must have been a problem for her. My parents really wanted me, but had they been able to conceive a child of their own, they wouldn’t have needed to adopt me. The feelings were difficult and complicated,
Exactly one day after my third birthday, we moved to Brussels. My father had taken a job as a general manager at a cosmetics company, with a territory covering Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. My mother threw me a small celebration with a cake at school, but the next day, we were in the car, heading to Belgium. Dad had found us an amazing, beautiful duplex in the center of the city, fifteen minutes from his office. It was two hundred square meters, more than two thousand square feet. The open staircase to the upstairs level scared me, but I loved the terrace that overlooked Cinquantenaire Park. I made my first snowman on that terrace.
My mother loved the apartment, although she hated the move. We didn’t know anybody, and the weather was dreadful. Things got better the following Easter, when all the parents of my preschool friends were renting houses on the North Sea. My mother found a rental for us, too, figuring it was our one chance to make some friends. She was right. We all had a great time in Knokke, a seaside resort about seventy miles northwest of Brussels. She liked our new home better after that.
I liked Brussels from the start. My favorite thing to do was to dress up in costumes, my interest in style manifesting itself early. I especially loved my sequined Harlequin getup, and I would walk around town wearing it as I hauled Baby Gilles on my back in his baby backpack.
My school was friendly and warm. When I learned one of my teachers was having a baby, I was so impressed that I needed to share the news with my mother. “Maman, you will never guess what is in the belly of Madame!” I exclaimed when I got home.
“I guess it’s a baby,” my mum answered.
“Was I in your belly, too?” I asked her in curiosity.
Mum’s answer confused me. “Anaïs, you were always in my heart, but there was another woman who gave birth to you. You were made in another woman.”
“What other woman?” I demanded. How on earth would that work?
“This woman couldn’t be your mother, so she gave you to us,” my mother continued.
I didn’t have any more questions. The concept was too strange, and there was nothing else I could ask.
Not long after that I started to realize what my schoolmates meant when they said, “You don’t look anything like your mother.” They were saying, “She can’t be your mother. She is blond with blue eyes, and you are Chinese.” I still didn’t know what to make of it. One afternoon, I came home from school totally distraught. “Was I abandoned? Did you find me in the garbage?” I asked my mother. I had seen a news story about a baby being found in the garbage in the Philippines on TV, and a boy at school, who had probably seen the same story, said that this is what probably happened to me—I was abandoned in the garbage, and my mother found me there.
“No, Anaïs, you were never abandoned,” my mother assured me. “The woman who gave birth to you, she immediately gave you to us. You were never abandoned. Look, we have a picture of you at four days, right after you were born.”
I didn’t ask any more questions, but this abandonment thing didn’t go away just because my mother shared a picture. This boy had really riled up feelings in me, and I didn’t know what to do or think. I loved my mother more than anybody, but who was this other mother she was talking about? And why wasn’t I with her?
For the first time, I felt really lonely inside. I tried to appear like I was taking the information in stride, but I had a pain that was hard to describe. It still stays with me to this day. No matter how I looked at it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something had gone wrong at the very start of my life. My birth mother couldn’t keep me, so I must have been a problem for her. My parents really wanted me, but had they been able to conceive a child of their own, they wouldn’t have needed to adopt me. The feelings were difficult and complicated,
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