Chance meeting reunites twin sisters separated at birth

A chance meeting has reunited identical twin sisters who were separated at birth nearly 15 years ago — and touched off a legal dispute over how two doctors adopted one of the girls.

Petita Penaherrera says she did not know she had twins until she and her daughter Andrea came face-to-face with Marielisa Romo four months ago in the southern Ecuadorean town of Milagros — "miracles" in English.

Andrea and Marielisa shared the same dark eyes, the same hair, the same ... everything.

Marielisa was accompanied by Roberto Romo and Isabel Garcia, the doctor couple who had delivered the twin babies — and then raised one.



Investigations began and, in June, Penaherrera and her husband, Augusto Freire, sued the doctors, saying they never mentioned Andrea's twin.

Romo and Garcia told Ecuavisa television the biological mother knew about the twins but only wanted to keep one.

"One day I hope to live with my two daughters," Freire said.

But Marielisa has said she wants to stay with the only parents she knows.