The siblings Sean Ours and Emily Ours Reid were adopted by a loving American couple when they were infants in Chile during the early 1980s. They were brought up in Alexandria, Virginia, where they had typical childhoods. Nevertheless, when the events transpired, there was a great deal more to the narrative.
As they were growing up, they and their adoptive family were under the impression that their birth mother had abandoned them because she desired a better life for her children. On the other hand, they did not find out until many years later that the brother and sister, who were born around one year apart, had been taken from them at birth as part of an unlawful adoption scam.
via the assistance of a charitable organization, Sean and Emily were able to finally meet their biological mother Sara for the first time via the use of a Zoom call in the month of November. Three months later, the three of them were reunited in Chile.
Emily, who is 39 years old and works as a caterer in Raleigh, North Carolina, tells PEOPLE that “it’s pretty incredible.” “The fact that we were able to go through this experience together is truly remarkable.”
The adoptive parents of Emily and Sean, who are now 40 years old, were open and honest about their Chilean heritage when they were youngsters.
In addition, when they were in high school and wanted to learn more about their biological family, their adopted mother hired a private investigator to help them. However, such efforts did not result in anything of significant value.
“It was difficult to deal with,” Sean, who is now employed in the sports goods industry and is a married father of two children, says, “because it seemed like that piece of us would always be separated from us.”
The adoption mother of Sean and Emily revealed to them that she had been reading about illegal adoptions in Chile that took place under the dictatorship of President Augusto Pinochet from 1974 to 1990. This revelation brought about a significant alteration in the circumstances surrounding the adoptions.
According to Emily, “there are a lot of indicators that led her to believe that we are a part of this.” This is because a significant number of the instances went back to the 1970s and continued until the middle of the 1980s.
Connecting Roots is a nonprofit organization that helps Chilean adoptees reconnect with their original families. Their adopted mother took the initiative to get in touch with the group because she want further advice.
Under Pinochet’s regime, mothers were told that their children had either passed away at birth or were born prematurely and later passed away as a means of exerting control over Chile’s impoverished and indigenous population, as stated by Tyler Graf, the founder of the organization. Graf, who is based in Houston, was also taken from his birthplace in Chile, just like Emily and Sean.
“You did not ask any questions during the dictatorship,” he tells PEOPLE. “It was totally unacceptable.” It is the truth that what was stated was the truth. Therefore, these youngsters were taken custody of and then put in an orphanage run by the government until they were adopted.
Specifically, according to Graf, the fact that Sean and Emily were both adopted by the same American family was what made their situation so extraordinary. Graf continues by saying, “The same social worker who was involved in the adoption agency had access to both of the mother’s children in some way.” They were able to remove two children from the same mother, which is a terrible crime in and of itself.
The adoption papers for Emily and Sean was sent to Graf after the two siblings granted Connecting Roots their permission to locate their biological mother. Sara, Sean, and Emily were all given DNA kits that were supplied by MyHeritage in collaboration with Connecting Roots. The group was successful in locating Sara.
According to Sara, who was speaking to PEOPLE via translator Nicolás Fuentes, she was unable to “believe it” when she found out that both of her children were still alive and living in the United States. When the results of her DNA test were finally sent in October of that year, the heartbreaking news that they had always known to be true emerged.
Emily explains, “We knew that she was our birth mother based on many physical characteristics, but the DNA doesn’t lie.” Sean adds that he was overwhelmed with “joy and relief” when he found out that she was our biological mother.
It was “all sorts of emotional,” according to Emily, when they finally got to see each other for the first time over Zoom.
“We were just stuck in the moment,” Sean says, “the realization that we actually can see our mother in person.” These are the words that Sean quotes. At some point, I am certain that all of us shed tears simply due to the fact that we were so ecstatic to finally meet one other in person and in person. The sensation was nothing short of incredible.
Emily, Sean, and a number of other adoptees who were born in Chile and adopted in the United States had a “overwhelming” level of happiness when they were reunited with their birth family at the Santiago airport in February.
In her words, Emily states, “I knew that this was what I had been waiting for all my life.” She believed that we had passed away. We had never had the opportunity to hold each other before, therefore this was the very first time that we really did so. It was really a great time.”
Emily said that she would want to return to Chile, stating that the trip exceeded all of their expectations and was above anything they could have ever imagined.
Every single member of the Connecting Roots team had done an outstanding job in terms of organizing everything. She explains, “Everyone keeps saying that it’s a trip that only comes around once in a lifetime, but it’s not.” “This is just the beginning of a new chapter of life.”
