Yahoo Lifestyle Twins Separated at Birth Reunited by TikTok Video: ‘I Don’t Like Hugs, but I Hugged Her’
"It was like looking in a mirror, the exact same face, exact same voice. I am her and she is me," Ano said of meeting her twin, Amy, at 19
BBC World Service/YouTube
Amy and Ano, Georgia twins who were separated at birthTwin girls separated at birth in a Georgia hospital have TikTok to thank for their reunion.
In November 2021, a friend of 19-year-old Ano Sartania sent the teen a TikTok video of a girl with blue hair getting her eyebrow pierced. The video not only uncovered a decades-long family mystery, but also shed light on illegal child trafficking, the BBC reported on Jan. 25.
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After being sent the clip, Sartania thought that’s "cool that she looks like me," and set out to find the girl who lived 200 miles away in Tbilisi.
Using a university WhatsApp group chat, the girls were eventually able to meet after a mutual friend connected them through Facebook.
The other girl’s name was Amy, also 19 — but their first in-person meeting at Rustaveli Metro Station in Tbilisi wasn’t Sartania’s first time seeing her.
Seven years earlier, Amy competed on Georgia's Got Talent.
Sartania had been watching the popular television show at her godmother's house near the Black Sea when Amy was shown dancing on the series. Sartania wasn’t the only one who thought they looked alike when the show aired.
People started to call Sartania’s mother, asking if the child went on the TV show using a different name.
"Everyone was calling my mum and asking: 'Why is Amy dancing under another name?' " Sartania told the BBC.
Though Sartania mentioned it to her mother at the time, she said her mom didn’t seem to give it much thought, saying, "Everyone has a doppelganger."
It wasn’t until the TikTok video in November 2021 that the girls were finally able to meet.
Related: Identical Twins Separated at Birth Find Each Other 36 Years Later: 'Like Looking in a Mirror'
"It was like looking in a mirror, the exact same face, exact same voice. I am her and she is me," Sartania said.
"I don't like hugs, but I hugged her," Ano added.
The girls learned that they were both born at Kirtskhi maternity hospital in western Georgia, however, the hospital no longer exists.
Though they had so much in common — even both being diagnosed with the same genetic bone disorder called dysplasia — their birth dates were listed as weeks apart, meaning they couldn’t possibly be twins.
Still, Sartania and Ano continued to dig, and eventually confronted their respective families, learning that they had indeed been adopted as babies in 2002.
BBC World Service/YouTube
Twins Amy and Ano meet their birth mother for the first timeAno said she was "angry and upset with my family, but I just wanted the difficult conversations to be over so that we could all move on."
Their adoptive mothers said they were unable to have children and both paid undisclosed amounts of money for the infants. Because the purchase was made at a hospital, they believed it was legal.
The girls later found their mother Aza (who lives in Germany) through another Facebook group, learning that Aza went into a coma after the delivery, and when she woke up, she was told her daughters had died.
Journalist Tamuna Museridze, who started the Facebook group that helped the family reunite, estimated that the black market baby trafficking in Georgia took place from the early 1950s to 2005, the BBC reported.
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"The scale is unimaginable, up to 100,000 babies were stolen. It was systemic," Museridze said.
The twins are not close with their birth mother, but still keep in touch.
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