What Is Up With Twins, Anyway?

By Jocelyn Geboy in News on Aug 23, 2006 4:56PM

We have been caught saying that we wish we had been born left-handed and/or a twin. We are neither. But there's something magical about twins. They have secret languages, they can play pranks on you, and there seems to be an amazing bond between twins that often crosses over into the metaphysical and "Ripley's Believe It Or Not" material.

Scientifically, these things are generally chalked up as ancedotal incidents, and nothing to count on. However, it doesn't stop people from being fascinated by twins, and it doesn't stop the ancedotal incidents from being compelling, either.

It's why we couldn't help but tell you that last Friday, two fraternal girl twins were reunited at O'Hare after their families discovered through an Internet site that they had both adopted babies* from China and named them both Mia.

The Funk family of Lyons and the Ramirez family of suburban Miami each adopted a little Chinese girl who had been abandoned. They named each of their girls Mia. And through what seems to be an impossible coincidence, they each found out about each other through an website for parents who had adopted children from an orphanage in Yangzhou. And on Friday, each began a new leg of her adoptive journey -- meeting her twin and her respective family.

Jim and Susan Rittenhouse of Lisle had a similiar experience, finding out that their adopted daughter had a twin, but also had the exact same name: Meredith. They now maintain a site helping to reunite adopted siblings, much like the one that helped reunite the Mias. Science may chalk up the identical naming up to coincidence, but twins still remain an intriguing mystery to genetic researchers and ESP enthusiasts alike.

Image via peking.kakichoco.com. *They were baby girls, not baby pandas.