Kaitlin Saar, a 41-year-old woman from Smithtown, just met her biological mother for the first time after she was separated from her at birth.
Saar knew she was adopted by an American couple at a young age. What she didn't know was she was born in Chile at a time when the Chilean government was stripping thousands of other babies from their mothers and putting them up for adoption in foreign countries under the oppressive Pinochet regime.
The breakthrough came this past August when Saar's mother, Maria Paulina Gonzalez, discovered Saar's Chilean birth certificate, through her human rights attorney, which was hidden under her adoptive name.
The discovery spurred Gonzalez to track her daughter down social media.
Saar got assistance from Connecting Roots, a nonprofit organization dedicated to reuniting Chilean adoptees with their biological families.
The two then took a DNA test to confirm their match, and then the two finally met Wednesday in Smithtown.
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