23 And Me Links Chinese Sisters

“Raised 1,300 miles apart, Leah Boedigheimer and Ruby Hunter were both adopted from the same orphanage in China. Both were left as infants, wrapped in a blanket, with just a birthdate for identification. Recently they discovered they are sisters.

In December 2019, through the genetic testing service 23 and Me, Hunter, who grew up in New Haven, discovered she had a sister she never knew about. It was Boedigheimer, who was raised in Cloquet, Minnesota.

In July, the two women met and realized they both have tattoos with the Julius Caesar quote “Veni, Vidi, Vici,” which is Latin for “I came, I saw, I conquered.” They both are pursuing careers in data analytics. They both were night owls. They had similar looks, mannerisms, opinions and tastes in food.

“It’s surreal. I think I’m still in shock,” said Hunter, who lives in West Hartford and works at Collins Aerospace in Windsor. “It’s completely satisfying, amazing and happy.”

Boedigheimer added, “I’m super happy. It’s hard to explain because it’s not like my family wasn’t full before I met her. Now I could not imagine not having her in my life.”

The women’s odyssey began even farther away, in Hangzhao, China, a port city just south of Shanghai. Hunter was born there on Sept. 12, 1994. She was found at a bus stop, with her birthdate pinned to the blanket she was wrapped in. Boedigheimer was born in Hangzhao on Nov. 12, 1995, and found at a government building, her birthdate pinned to her blanket.

When Hunter was 9 months old, she was adopted by Mary Hunter of Seattle. Then the single mother and her baby girl moved to Connecticut. Mary Hunter worked at Yale School of Drama as the chair of the stage management department. Ruby Hunter graduated from Branford High School and went to Central Connecticut State University, then Southern Connecticut State University.

When Boedigheimer was 13 months old, she was adopted by Ruth and Kevin Boedigheimer of Cloquet. Later, the Boedigheimers adopted a baby boy from South Korea. Boedigheimer went to the University at Wisconsin-Superior and then The College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota.

Both women were happy with their lives and never thought much about their mysterious baby days. But another tattoo got Hunter wondering about her origins.

“I’ve always known I was adopted from China. As a joke, I got a ‘Made in China’ tattoo. Then I was talking to one of my friends and I was saying, wouldn’t it be silly if I had this tattoo and I’m not actually Chinese? I was adopted there, but you never know where my biological parents came from,” she said.

“I got the 23 and Me test. It turns out I am 100% Chinese,” Hunter said. “I was refreshing a page and the first thing that popped up was ‘sister’ in terms of relatives. I thought, that must be a glitch and it should go away once the results finally load. But it didn’t go away.”

Months earlier, Boedigheimer had joined 23 and Me to see if any relatives popped up, as a check to see if she was predisposed to any medical conditions. “All I got was a fifth cousin. That wasn’t very interesting,” she said. (Fifth cousins have the same great-great-great-great-grandparents.) She stopped paying attention to 23 and Me, and her account went inactive.

But Hunter was determined. She got no response from Boedigheimer through 23 and Me. But she found her on Facebook. “I said, we’re sisters. I’d love to learn more about you,” Hunter said.

At first Boedigheimer didn’t buy it. “She sent me a number. I thought, is this a scam? It was a too-good-to-be-true type thing. Then I looked at her picture and said, nope, it’s very real.”

In their messages later, they discovered they were adopted from the same orphanage.

On July 4, the women met for the first time in Beulah, Michigan, where Mary Hunter, now retired, had bought a home.

“When we were talking, everything she said I completely agreed with and vice versa. It’s like I cloned myself, but like I tweaked a few things,” Hunter said. “It was super weird. I have a sister. It’s amazing to grow up thinking I’m an only child and then finding a sister. It’s life-changing.”

The sisters they came up with a theory about their biological parents. “In China, you can only have so many kids and they don’t particularly favor girls. Girls don’t bring in money and take care of the family like boys do. We think our parents were trying for a boy,” Hunter said.

Mary Hunter agrees. “Parents were forced into difficult positions. I would not want to be judgmental about that. Putting up a child for adoption was illegal at the time. Parents would bring babies to a public place, where they knew they would be taken immediately to a hospital and then an orphanage, a safe place.”

China’s one-child policy was in effect from 1979 to 2015.

Hunter and Boedigheimer are busy with school and work, but Boedigheimer said they may make the July 4 reunion an annual thing. Hunter would like that.

“My family grew to include her family in a moment. I have a small family, me, my mom, my aunt, my uncle. Now I have this whole extended family as well,” Hunter said. “They are the kindest people. They’re everything you would want for this to happen to you.””

Surreal similarities: Connecticut woman adopted from China discovers a sister

[MSN 9/14/2020 by Susan Donne]

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