Twins Stolen at Birth Reunite with Biological Mom Who 'Never Forgot About Us' — and Fought to Find Them

Mar. 15, 2025

Twins Elan and Micah Nardi have been reunited with their family after discovering they were stolen from their mother at birth.

The brothers were just 3 months old when they were separated from their mother, who had brought them to the hospital with a sick older sibling in Santiago in 1986. Someone from the hospital offered to look after the babies while she tended to her other child, Elan explains to PEOPLE in this week’s issue: “Later, when she tried to find where they were caring for us, they slammed the door in her face.”

Elan and Micah Nardi with their biological mother.MyHeritage.com

Shaken, she told her sons, “There’s so many similarities. We have to investigate.” With help from Graf’s nonprofitConnecting Roots, Chile-based nonprofitNos Buscamosandfamily history service MyHeritage, which provided DNA tests that confirmed the match, the twins were able to find their biological family.

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A short time later, the twins met their birth parents for the first time via Zoom. Micah says they had kept a photo of the boys from when they were just a couple months old.

“They said, ‘We’d never forgotten you. We’ve had this picture with us for 36 years. We’ve always wondered what had happened to you,'” Micah tells PEOPLE. “Just the genuine emotion and reaction that they had made me have no doubt that what they were saying was sincere.”

For more on adoptees who were stolen at birth in Chile, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribehere.

Elan and Micah Nardi after their adoption in 1986.MyHeritage.com

“Our mom would go to news stations to tell the story of our disappearance and try to find us,” says Elan. “They were searching from the moment we disappeared. They always held us in their thoughts.”

In June, the twins traveled to Chile and met their biological family for the first time. They recently returned from a second trip to the South American country, though language has been proven to be a barrier: The twins speak English, while the rest of their biological family speaks Spanish.

To that end, Connecting Roots has provided Elan and Micah with subscriptions toBabbel, a language-learning app, to help improve communication between the long-lost family members.

“Our goal is to eventually be fluent in Spanish, but it’s still a pretty beginner level,” says Micah. “And what we understand is there’s a lot of specifics to the language in Chile. So, it’s a little bit more unique to learn Chilean Spanish than general Spanish.”

The twins hope their story will inspire other adoptees from Chile to explore their own personal history.

“It’s a difficult thing to do, but we want to encourage others adopted from Chile in that time to reach out,” says Micah. “Otherwise you might never get answers.”

source: people.com