Estranged Siblings Reunite After 7 Years In The Same Hospital

This is Christina Sadberry, a mother and servicewoman from Brenham, Texas, now based in Florida. Pictures show her looking happy enough. Yet for many years there was a large hole in her life. Put up for adoption at the age of just three months old, she was troubled by the same thoughts anyone in her position would have. Who were her real parents? What was her true story?

She decided to do something about this most burning of issues once and for all. In 2006 she went on a quest to settle the matter definitively. As you can imagine, this wasn’t an easy task for Christina. She had no guarantees her search would result in a concrete answer. Sure enough, it wasn’t everything she’d probably hoped for. There was good news and bad.

The good news was she was reunited with her biological mother. Yet all was not well, as the lady she’d thought about all this time also revealed that her biological father was off the radar. Christina got the impression that, whoever this man was, he was probably unaware of her existence. We can only imagine how disappointing that must have been for Christina.

What did she do next? There was nothing to go on. She didn’t know if she had brothers, or sisters. What she did have was a child of her own, though the little man would face his own life struggles. Christina’s son had been diagnosed with Nephrotic Syndrome, which affects the kidneys. She’d looked to her past, but now she needed to focus on the present. 

This involved taking him for treatment at the Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas. It’s surely a parent’s worst nightmare, having to bring their child into a hospital. Affecting 1 in 50,000 kids, Nephrotic Syndrome happens when someone’s urine takes on lots of protein, owing to leakage from the kidneys. It can lead to infections and even kidney failure. 

Christina and her family began visiting the Medical Center for treatment, starting in 2015. She was aware of the Sparklefly Studio, a media facility at the center where music was made. But it was hardly at the forefront of her mind. In fact, you may be wondering why we’re bringing it up in the first place? All will become clear…

Later in 2015, a music producer named Raymond Turner, from Hempstead, Texas, started a new job at Cook’s. Christina even saw him once at the studio: she remembered he was wearing a red shirt. That was an important day for Christina for one amazing reason. She’d earlier received a message from the wife of someone who said he was her brother.

To Christina’s surprise, she’d been contacted via 23andMe. She’d actually used the firm herself back in 2014, though it hadn’t originally produced any compelling matches. The DNA testing service works by people supplying saliva samples which are then analyzed. Though to start with it hadn’t worked out too well for Christina, now someone else had found her. Talk about the fates being aligned!

On the subject of fate, we should mention the identity of the person who’d contacted Christina. You may probably have guessed by now — it was Raymond! Yes, he’d been working at the very establishment she and her family had frequented while treating her son. An incredible coincidence for sure, but the eye-opening facts don’t stop there.

For starters, Christina had been initially contacted through Facebook. Turner messaged her care of 23andMe when he found out. Still, things obviously weren’t moving quickly enough. Having spent his own period of time looking for answers about his own family background, Raymond didn’t want to wait. Who could blame him, after all? This was truly a one in a million shot!

Amazingly, he and his wife Maria had a mutual Facebook friend with Christina! Throw in the fact they were in the same building, plus Christina seeing Raymond with his red shirt on the day she got his message and you have a recipe for pure genealogical magic. After so much time and uncertainty, everything finally snapped together for these long-estranged siblings.  

“I was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me!’” Christina said, speaking in an interview to local TV news station WFAA. “Like, there’s no way in the world that this was the guy that we saw.” In fact, this was the first time she’d seen someone in the recording studio. How perfect that it just so happened to be the brother she never knew she had. 

It could so easily not have happened. Turner had received his 23andMe kit as a Christmas gift. He had been keen to establish where he came from. Indeed, a potential trip to Africa was on his mind. Then, of course, revelations unfolded much closer to home. This stunning news blindsided Turner, and he figured it may all have been an error. Thankfully, though, he reached out.

Initial communication between Christina and Raymond took place by text. The messages must have pinged back and forth like a tennis match, with each side eager to learn about the other. Them being in the same place, indeed the same building, and having not known was a major talking-point in itself. It transpired that Raymond also passed Christina’s place of work regularly.

It was March 25, 2022, when they finally came face to face. The meeting happened at — where else — Cook’s Medical Center. We’re thinking the atmosphere must have been extraordinary. “There's such a completeness when that puzzle piece fits into place,” Turner told People magazine. Christina also talked about a feeling of wholeness now her brother is back in her life. 

These siblings with the same father had reached their destination. Of course the pair exchanged a big hug. More than one we’re sure! Christina revealed that hugging Raymond “felt like home”. Hardly surprising. Though the connections didn’t end there: if you think you’ve heard about all the coincidences in their lives, then prepare to be dazzled. The more they probed, the more similarities emerged. 

Starting with an all-important topic… food! You see, both had a fave foodstuff, in the shape of delicious butter pecan ice cream. Also, People reported that they went to the Olive Garden and ordered the same meal! Talking to Fox 4 News, Christina went on to mention that the pair both had a tendency to feel cold a lot. It all added to the powerful shared bond these two experienced.   

As for Christina’s son, we’re pleased to say that he recovered, making the story extra-special. The only downside is that Christina is now in another state, doing her duty. Still, that isn’t going to stop everyone getting together regularly. Birthdays, not to mention other holidays, will never be the same again. Their story spreads an important message about knowing your roots.

If you read about Christina and Raymond’s story in a book, or watched it in a TV movie, you’d probably have difficulty swallowing it. As it stands, this is a true and genuinely awe-inspiring narrative that has warmed hearts and mended fences in a family that looked set to be kept apart by circumstances forever. It’s far from the only story of siblings split apart for many years, though...

Though they didn’t live together, Shawney and Luke were as close as siblings could be. The young pair resided in different foster homes, but they still saw each other all the time. Until, that is, they were each adopted out to different families. For almost two decades, they would have no idea where the other one was — but that all changed one day thanks to a fateful message on Facebook.

Shawney and Luke’s troubles started while they were both very young. A woman had taken the decision to adopt and raise Luke as her own, but she just couldn’t commit to taking on his sister as well. Because of that, three-year-old Shawney would ultimately end up with a different adoptive family to her brother.

That meant the young siblings would now be separated by thousands of miles. The kids had spent their earliest days as the best of friends, but now they would never have the opportunity to see each other again. They’d both found new families, but at the expense of a relationship with each other.

It’s unquestionably sad that these kids had been robbed of the chance to grow up together, but it wasn’t all bad. They had, after all, both entered into good homes and were being brought up well. That’s the good news, but neither of the kids ever forgot about the sibling from whom they’d been torn.

The years passed, and Shawney and Luke grew up and lived their respective lives. They never saw each other, nor even heard any news about their sibling. But as an adult, Luke was determined to track his sister down. He’d never forgotten her, so he got on social media and did some amateur detective work.

Luke didn’t have much information to go on. He hadn’t seen his sister in so many years by this point, and he only really knew her first name and how old she was. But with a bit of persistence, he managed to find someone on Facebook who seemed to fit the bill.

Now, all Luke had to do was to fire off a message to this woman to see if she was his sister. That must have been a strange, stressful greeting to compose, but it needed to be done. The question was, how would it play out from there? Was he barking up the wrong tree, or was he about to reestablish contact with the sister he’d lost so long ago?

It had been 18 long years since Luke had seen Shawney, but he’d never lost sight of the bond they’d once shared. As anyone with a sibling will know, it’s a connection that stays with you for the rest of your life. Even in circumstances as tough as the one this pair found themselves in, there’s no forgetting about your brother or sister.

Still, for the first few years of their separation, there wasn’t much either kid could do. They were both so young, so they couldn’t exactly conduct a search for their lost sibling. But even when they got a little older, they were still living in a world before social media was ubiquitous. Finding people wasn’t quite so simple in those days.

And as they got older, of course, life started getting in the way. Luke, for one, had grown up to start a family of his own, so conducting investigations wasn’t really an option for a long time. He had other priorities upon which he needed to focus.

Besides, the chances of Luke actually managing to track down Shawney after all these years seemed slim, at best. Having initially lived in New Mexico alongside his sister, Luke had since moved to Baltimore. And who knew where his sibling had ended up in the intervening years? She could have been anywhere.

Still, even with all odds stacked against him and with his own family to worry about, Luke eventually found the time to start looking. And luckily for him, this was 2017 — a time when social media was at his disposal. Armed with Shawney’s name and age, he got to work and tracked down a woman he thought might be her.

This woman — who, at the very least, had the name Shawney — seemed to reside in Las Vegas, if her social media details were to be believed. That meant thousands of miles had stood between her and Luke. Were it not for social media, it’s extremely unlikely they ever would have encountered each other.

Suspecting that just maybe he’d found the right Shawney, Luke composed a message and sent it off. He really hoped he’d managed to find his sister here, but he couldn’t be sure. The wait after pressing send must have been agonizing, but a reply landed in his inbox before long.

Was this it, or was Luke about to be left bitterly disappointed? He braced himself and opened up the message. He took in the words, and gave it some thought. This seemed promising, but nothing could be confirmed yet. He and Shawney sent a number of messages before they felt satisfied. But eventually, they were feeling good — they’d finally found each other.

The pair lived so far away from each other, that nothing could initially be done. Getting from Baltimore to Las Vegas is no simple task, and a lot of money and planning needed to go into a journey like that. So, even though the siblings had finally reconnected, they still couldn’t meet right away.

That was soon to change, though, as the TV show The Real had caught wind of Luke and Shawney’s story. This was the perfect content for their program, so the producers invited them both to appear on it. This would be the first time they’d met in 18 years — and it was all caught on camera.

In the footage, Luke is brought onto set first, where he speaks about all that has happened up until this point. He brings the audience up to speed, but clearly he is a little distracted. He keeps losing focus and surveying his surroundings, presumably attempting to see if Shawney is anywhere to be seen.

Luckily for Luke, he doesn’t have too long to wait. Shawney eventually makes her entrance, and the long-lost siblings are both reduced to tears. After 18 long years of separation, they’ve finally been brought back together at last. It’s a happy conclusion to a difficult chapter in their lives.

For her part, Shawney explains her side of the story. She can’t actually remember Luke, and was only informed of his existence at 13 years of age. At that point, she started trying to track him down — and now her search is finally over. Clearly delighted by developments, she gushes on the TV show, “Right now, I’m at a loss for words. My heart’s racing: I’m shaking. This is amazing.” Shawney might have known Luke was out there in the world, but seeing his face with her own eyes was a surreal experience for which no one could have prepared her.