Separated @ Birth: A True Love Story of Twin Sisters Reunited

by Anais Bordier

  After dinner, Anaïs and I went downtown to meet some friends of mine for a drink and when we were close enough for me to point out the bar where they were inside waiting, Anaïs started running toward the bar, leaving me behind. I couldn’t believe it. My sister was hilarious and simply bolted, just like her foster mother had done in Korea. When I got inside, there she was, giggling and waving to people who thought they knew her. We thought it was fun, but I think my friends were a little bit uncomfortable with the whole charade.

  While in New York, Anaïs also wanted to go to MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art off Fifth Avenue. I had never seen her so excited. She’d grab my wrist and say, “You have to look at this artist!” I was so impressed with how much she knew about the artists and their intentions. She had a grasp on art history that was astonishing. I confess, sometimes I love to find the meaning behind paintings, but other times I admire them solely because they are pretty. I like the colors and textures of Pop Art, but Anaïs is more receptive to the ink paintings. She has a dark side, an introverted love of dark art. Pop Art gives me instant gratification, an exciting and thrilling feeling. Depressing art brings me down. But my sister loves that stuff. Hey, even identical twins have differences.

  When the time came, I didn’t want Anaïs to go, and she was equally distraught. Here was the long-distance relationship part again. . . . “So, we won’t see each other for a while,” “I’ll call!” “I’ll see you in April!” and all the other promises that went with it. I tried to think of reasons we’d reconnect before then. We were working together on the book and documentary, so we had those two things that might bring us together. I knew I’d see her all the time on Skype. That was the beauty of contemporary life—she was just a click away. I’d already woken up to her text messages every single morning since we first connected, so we knew we were not that far apart. Still, it was not the same as waking up to my sister’s face, my face! I loved pulling her pillow away from her head in an annoying fashion until she woke up.

  On our final night together, we stayed up talking pretty much until morning. Maybe it was good we didn’t grow up together, because we would have never slept! I imagined hearing my parents yelling, “Girls! Lights out!” I imagined we would then have gone under the covers with flashlights, where my sister would draw while I staged our bedtime story.

  My sister. I never thought I would say that. Matt and Andrew were my brothers, and that had been it, the three of us, two boys and a girl. I also have a birth mother. There is a woman out there who I may or may not meet one day. Sometimes, I still wonder if her intentions toward Anaïs and me were malicious. What if she had separated us on purpose? What if she never wanted Anaïs and me to find out about each other? But I guess that is irrelevant. No matter what her intentions were, they turned into something amazingly positive, and to me, that couldn’t have been done without love.

  By separating us, our mother gave two families each the gift of a lifetime. She gave the Bordiers a daughter to love until their dying days. And my family got me! No matter what she had in mind in the beginning, it didn’t change what we had now. If Anaïs and I ever meet her, maybe she can fill in our storybook with more detail, but our abstract is absolutely beautiful as it is now.

  I love my birth mother. She gave me life. She gave me a life with my family. She gave me my sister. Because of her, I got the best of both worlds.

  19

  SAM AND ANAÏS

  dr. nancy l. segal’s research results

  By late fall, the results from Dr. Segal’s studies were finally ready to review. She had collected all the data, analyzed all the testing, and conducted her final interviews, and she had prepared a comprehensive report about us to be published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences. We couldn’t wait to see how nature and nurture had affected our personalities.

  Dr. Segal found us to be remarkably similar. One of the first things she noted was how quickly we warmed to each other, even before our initial meeting. We had even created a pet name that we shared—Pop—within our first few online communications. Dr. Segal was struck by our physical similarities and mannerisms. She noted that we shared the same shy smile, similar giggle, crazy sense of humor, and delightful disposition. We were both artistic and creative and had pursued careers to use those talents. We were also both hardworking and independent.

  Dr. Segal was not present at our reunion in London, but she found our initial responses to each other to be very typical of some other reared-apart twins meeting each other for the first time. We were cautious and curious. We didn’t embrace, but poked each other to make sure the other was real. After all, we really were strangers to each other. We both grew up in Caucasian families, so even though there was no question we were adopted, we both wondered if anyone anywhere in the world looked like us. We had a longing for that physical connection that would make us secure in our identity. In London, when we first met, we were suddenly looking at our mirror image, no surprise that we would be inclined to just stare.

  With the testing, Dr. Segal covered eight areas—life history, special cognitive abilities, personality traits, IQ, self-esteem, job satisfaction, medical history, and social relationship. Some of these tests were administered when we were together, others when we were apart. Whenever possible, Anaïs was given hers in French.

  For the life history, Dr. Segal used the interview administered to participants of the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart. She covered items concerning the circumstances of our adoption, the families that adopted us, and our educational background and our work histories.

  In order to assess our general intelligence, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-IV (WAIS-IV) was administered to each of us, one week apart, in September 2013, Sam’s in Los Angeles and Anaïs’s in Paris. This test measured verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory, and processing speed scales, as well as general intelligence indexed by IQ. We also completed thirteen special metal ability tests.

  Consistent with previous reared-apart twins, we were close in everything but “working memory.” Dr. Segal speculated that Sam’s superior performance on the memory tasks was consistent with her memorization of theatrical dialogue and food requests. Sam’s acting and waitressing required good memory, social comprehension, and problem-solving skills. Anaïs outperformed Sam on four of the five visual-spatial tests, consistent with the idea that fashion designers benefit from good visual skills. It was likely that Anaïs exercised various visual-spatial skills as she imagined the look and movement of sizes and shapes.

  Dr. Segal said that Sam’s many skills required by her two jobs might also explain the difference in the IQ scores. Sam obtained an IQ score of 129, while Anaïs obtained a score of 112. The twins’ seventeen-point difference slightly exceeds the test’s standard deviation of fifteen. This discrepancy could variously reflect unknown differences in our prenatal environment (e.g., unequal nutrition), the different skills demanded of our jobs, and other life history or birth factors. Dr. Segal also pointed out that there is a phenomenon called “regression to the mean.” So, if we were to retake the test, our scores might grow closer. In other words, Sam may have been really strong that one day of testing, and Anaïs may not have been feeling well. On another day, the test results might be different. In individual cases, people could show some change on different occasions.

  Dr. Segal said the beauty of our situation was that being raised in different countries provided a glimpse into how culture interacted with common genes to produce some observable differences. We took three personality questionnaires. The first included two hundred items organized into twenty-one personality dimensions and the Big Five personality traits—openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and stability, which was the reverse of neuroticism. The second personality inventory included three hundred adjectives we checked if the term was self-descriptive. The third questionnaire was a sixty-item personality inventory that
also yielded scores on the Big Five.

  It was surprising to detect some substantial differences in our Big Five personality trait profiles. The biggest differences between us occurred in the neuroticism and extraversion categories, with Anaïs scoring higher in neuroticism and Sam scoring higher in extroversion.

  Dr. Segal said the reasons for these differences were unclear. Anaïs had recently completed a graduate program and taken a new job in France, so she suggested that perhaps a relatively lower score in extroversion reflected this life transition. Another possibility was prejudiced encounters while growing up. However, our scores were nearly identical for openness, conscientiousness, and agreeableness.

  The testing showed that we both seem to have good self-esteem. On a range where “good” is fifteen to twenty-five, Sam obtained a score of twenty-four, and Anaïs obtained a score of fifteen. Our scores were at the upper and lower ends of this range, which, according to Dr. Segal, was a departure from our similarities.

  To determine our job satisfaction, Dr. Segal gave us the Minnesota Job Satisfaction Questionnaire. We used a scale of one to five to indicate our satisfaction with twenty job-related items. We showed very similar profile patterns in terms of overall job satisfaction. Anaïs’s score showed she was slightly more satisfied with her job than Sam. Regardless, our satisfaction with our work was consistent with genetic influence on job satisfaction.

  We also completed a medical history, covering illnesses, injuries, and hospitalizations. We were very similar in height and weight, although Anaïs was 0.75 inches taller than Sam. We were both right-handed, although Anaïs could use both hands. We were generally healthy, but showed similarities across various symptoms and complaints, mostly gastrointestinal. Both of us were lactose intolerant, but we ate cheese despite the consequences. We both suffered from headaches. Sam controlled hers with over-the-counter medications, while Anaïs used prescribed medicines. Sam’s headaches were “bothersome,” whereas Anaïs’s were more debilitating, sometimes requiring bed rest or stopping normal activities. We both had allergies, thirst, and dry mouth, bruised easily, wore contact lenses or glasses, and took oral contraceptives. In 2012, Anaïs experienced neuralgia in her left shoulder, a symptom Sam experienced in her leg.

  We also had some different health-related problems. Sam had sinus trouble and was allergic to antibiotics. She had to be hospitalized for the removal of her wisdom teeth. Anaïs was allergic to insects, seafood, and aspirin. She experienced low blood pressure, heart palpitations, joint pain, and teeth-grinding.

  As much as we hate to admit it, we both smoke on occasion. Sam had her first cigarette at age eleven, and never smokes more than one cigarette every two weeks. Anaïs had her first cigarette at age nineteen and is more inclined to have at least one cigarette every day. She has never smoked more than half a pack in one day.

  During a joint interview, which was videotaped at Cal State–Fullerton, we talked about all sorts of topics, from our reunion to our artistic fields of work, to our observations about our similarities. We admitted that we had come across many surprises at how similar we are, considering how different our lifestyles have been. Sam felt more “feminine” with Anaïs, relative to how she felt when among her brothers. Most important, we couldn’t wait to share time together for the rest of our lives.

  Each of us took away something different from Dr. Segal’s findings and expertise. We both were most fascinated by points where we deviated from similarity. Sam was interested in mirror-image effects in twins, social coordination tests, and IQ. Anaïs was interested in the complications of test-taking—i.e., the language of the test, our participation in a larger study, and IQ. First and foremost, we were interested in IQ. We each prepared a few thoughts.

  Sam: I wasn’t sure of what the outcome would be on any of the tests, especially the ones that measured mental abilities. I was afraid that Anaïs and I would have wildly different scores, and I, being the dumb American actress, would have embarrassingly lower scores. But my sister assured me that in the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart, the twins had scored on average about seven points apart, and some twins did not differ at all. However, some twins differed by more than seven points, and one pair differed by twenty-nine points. I was surprised to learn that, but even more surprised when we got our results. The three personality profiles were astounding. We were quite parallel in every way, except the ones concerning extroversion and neuroticism. One chart based on the third personality inventory was completely nonparallel in that respect. And although it’s not surprising for an actress and a designer to have opposing intro/extroversion, it was still shocking to me that it would be so different. In my expression of work, aka acting, I am free and open with my feelings, yet when it comes to my actual emotion, I am quite pulled back. I don’t say much until I have to. Or at least, that’s what I perceive myself as doing.

  To my excitement, my official IQ score came back in my favor! The French can never call us “dumb Americans” again! I was surprised, being that Anaïs had just finished graduate school and had had many more years in the classroom than I. And I never did my homework. I wasn’t even remotely interested in academics until my sophomore year of college. Relief to know that those college loans were worth it!

  The results of the physical testing to see if we were “mirror twins” were not all that surprising, since they solidified what we already thought we knew. In the physical testing, we were being checked to see whether we showed any opposite or reverse features. The phenomenon only occurs in identical twins, when the fertilized egg splits eight or more days after conception, which is relatively late. Twins showing mirror image effects exhibit reversed physical features. One might be right-handed, the other left. They might have similar birthmarks, but on opposite sides. They might even have hair curls that twist in opposite directions. Only about a quarter of identical twins show such reversed features.

  It turned out that Anaïs and I mirrored each other in some things, but not all. I am right-handed, and Anaïs is ambidextrous. She only uses her right hand about a quarter of the time. I don’t know if Dr. Segal’s testing considered that Anaïs had been encouraged to use her right hand in school, part of French educational aversion to left-handedness. When she broke her right arm riding her horse at age fifteen, she had no choice but to write with her left hand. Anyway, she is considered ambidextrous, and I am right-handed. Also, our eyes are a bit opposite. My strong eye is her weak eye and vice versa.

  In the hand-eye coordination test, we were thrown Ping-Pong balls and asked to catch them a bunch of times with only one hand. Anaïs wasn’t fully able to catch the ball in one hand, but it left a comical moment in our memory. I was catching the ball in one hand, left or right, with no juggling or hesitation at all. That was not surprising—I grew up playing sports like softball and basketball, thanks to brothers, whereas Anaïs only did horseback riding and ballet.

  Also, for those out there who think all Asians are good at math, our IQ scores say differently.

  Anaïs: I was familiar with Dr. Segal’s findings in her books and articles. I had looked online and read every document that she had sent to my sister and me. I wanted to know anything and everything about twins. Therefore, I was somewhat prepared for what the testing would involve.

  Even though many of the tests were in French, my first language, I had been studying in London for quite a few years then, and I was working hard on my studies in English. So when I had to do vocabulary and writing skills, I was nervous that I had forgotten how to put things properly in French. Funny, you’d think I’d be able to speak more freely in my native tongue!

  For the personality testing, I thought it was weird to see the questions rephrased. It seemed as though they had been translated, and sometimes I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be finding nuances in the exact meanings. I was probably overthinking it, but I would look at the English double, just to try to make sure that it all made sense. Even today
, I can get lost in translation!

  Not to my surprise, Sam’s memory was a bit stronger than mine, although memory was a talent of mine as well. On the other hand, I was more visual, which made a lot of sense as I was staring at designs all day long. I must admit, I was a little disheartened by my IQ score, for I found out I was the stupid one. I’m sure my sister was thrilled, since we French always poke fun at the Americans! But it was a specific IQ test, and it was created by Americans. We have to take one made by the French in order for it to be accurate. I challenge my sister to a rematch.

  epilogue

  let things fall as they may

  Our finding each other has changed not only our lives but the lives of everybody in our families. Each set of our parents has themselves a new “daughter”; each daughter has a new set of “parents.” We asked our parents to put their thoughts on paper. We were so heartened to see what they wrote that we wanted to share their words here, followed by thoughts of our own:

  JACQUES BORDIER

  I was very cautious when I first heard about Sam as Anaïs’s possible twin sister. Anaïs was, naturally, so moved by the event, and I knew her so well that, as a father, I wanted to avoid any terrible disappointment that would send her low in her spirits.

  I, myself, as an “ordinary Caucasian” citizen, had been tempted to find similarities between Asian faces (the they all look alike syndrome), although I knew I would be able to recognize my daughter, even if she had been circled by a billion Korean and other Asian faces. Several times I had encountered young Asian ladies who I thought bore some traits resembling Anaïs’s. When Anaïs was about eight years old, I vividly remember seeing an Asian young lady, probably from Korean origin, who was about eighteen or twenty years old. I thought that was exactly how Anaïs would look when she turned twenty. It was a real shock to me, like seeing a film, a projection of the same person, ahead in time. So impressed was I that I still remember that moment.