Photo: Pigprox / Shutterstock
What a small world!
By Tomás Diniz Santos — Written on Oct 23, 2021
A woman in China was filled with joy knowing that her son was now married to her daughter-in-law. What she found out about the girl brought her to tears.
Thanks to a unique birthmark on her hand, the woman identified the girl as her long-lost daughter from over 20 years ago.
The bride was also brought to tears as it shocked everyone to learn how the two were reunited. But there were more twists to come.
The fateful wedding day
The wedding took place on March 31 in Suzhou, Jiangsu province in China. After the groom's mother spotted the birthmark on the bride’s hand, she decided to talk to her parents and see if she could confirm her suspicions.
The bride's parents were shocked and confused when asked if the bride was adopted. It had been a secret within the family for 20 years. Her parents went on to reveal that they had found her as a baby on the side of the road.
The reason the birthmark was such a big clue for the woman was that her daughter, whom she had lost 20 years prior, had the same one on her arm.
The bride, now daughter-in-law of the groom's mother, could barely contain her emotion as she listened to the story unfold. She had been waiting her entire life to meet her biological parents and she was shocked to have it all come out on the day of her wedding.
The bride admitted that meeting her biological mom made her “happier than the wedding day itself."
The crazy coincidence wasn’t the only twist that day
If the bride was actually the groom’s biological mother, then that would mean the newlyweds were actually brother and sister.
Thankfully, and to the relief of everyone at the wedding, it turned out that the groom's mother had adopted her son after years of dealing with the loss of her daughter.
After searching for her daughter in vain, the woman decided to adopt a child. Therefore, there were no problems with the wedding as planned since the couple weren't actually related.
If the woman never adopted a baby boy after losing her daughter, she may have never reunited with her in the first place.
The guests of the wedding as well as the bride were relieved and happy to continue the traditional wedding events with a newfound joy for the bride and her biological mother.
According to International Adoption, over 267,000 children were adopted in China from 1999-2016. Another 78,357 children were adopted by Americans. Why are so many children adopted in China?
Many say that the reason adoption rates are so high is because of the country’s old one-child policy. It stated that a family could only have one child per family household. That rule was ended in 2016.
Where do the groom and bride go from here?
One can imagine that the newlyweds would go on their honeymoon, but who’s to say the bride doesn’t want to spend some time getting to know the mother she lost so many years before.
In a country with such a high adoption rate, maybe it isn't so baffling to think of the coincidence, that this mother and daughter were reunited at the wedding of two adopted children.
Who’s to say stories like this don’t occur more often than we hear about?
Tomás Diniz Santos is a writer living in Orlando, Florida. He covers news, entertainment, and pop-culture topics.