After being adopted at the age of 2, one woman always dreamed of having a younger sibling. Growing up, she asked her parents for a little sister daily, but it never seemed like a possibility.That was, until she received a message from a stranger, finally answering all her wishes after all these years.Rachel Weiner, 26, was adopted from Bogota, Colombia, in 1998 when she was just 2 years old. She had a wonderful childhood in the U.S. with supportive parents, who also adopted a boy three years older than Weiner. The family have an incredible bond to this day, but there was always one thing missing for Weiner: a little sister.She told Newsweek that, between the ages of 4 and 10, she regularly begged her parents to adopt another girl so she could get to be a big sister. While it started off as a joke, “deep down, it was always serious.”Weiner, who resides in New York, said: “They would laugh and told me they would like to do that to make me happy. But, at the end of the day, they only wanted two kids.”Once she got a bit older and matured, Weiner realized what a tall ask it was, and she put the idea to bed. She was happy to be part of a family of four with just one sibling.Or so she thought.In 2024, Weiner started posting on social media (@rachellannaa) about her adoption story to connect with others and provide some transparency around the process. She had connected with her biological mother in 2021, and she wanted to share how she had done it.”I thought that, if I was going to have a presence on social media, I would want to talk about that. That way, people like me that might be looking for their biological families could relate to it, and even people who were unsuccessful with finding their biological families could find some comfort in it,” Weiner continued.The Instagram video captured plenty of viewers online, but it wasn’t until February 2025 that it caught the attention of one person in particular.Weiner received a message from a woman in Sweden who said she knew the name of her biological mother. It caught Weiner by surprise, as she said no one beyond her closest friends knew her name.She contemplated what this could mean, wondering if it was fake or if she had misunderstood. Shortly after, the woman told Weiner that she knew her birth name and the name of her biological dad too.It was getting harder to deny, and Weiner found herself wondering if she had finally found her little sister.”She said I had popped up before with a random video unrelated to adoption, and she thought we kind of looked alike. But when that adoption video popped up, she was, like, ‘This is my sister,'” Weiner said.”I was so shocked because I had no clue she existed, but my sister knew about me her entire life because she was adopted after me. When you’re adopted, they leave you with files covering basic information about your family, and that’s how she knew.”The duo agreed to a FaceTime call that lasted for two hours. Weiner’s sister, Emelie Moe, 25, said it had always been her dream to find her older sister, and now social media finally brought them together.The pair were both hesitant at first, but after a couple of weeks, they had already formed a sisterly bond.Weiner said: “We’re basically at the same stage of life and we always will be. We’ll be in our twenties together, our thirties, and so on. It feels really good, and I think we’re going to be so close for the rest of our lives.”For Moe, it was a surreal moment to see Weiner’s video pop up on her feed and to know deep down she was looking at her sister. She was nervous to reach out in case Weiner didn’t want anything to do with her, but she simply had to try.”I always wanted to find her ever since I found out in my adoption papers that I had a full older sister,” Moe told Newsweek. “I was always the girl who knew she had a sister, but wasn’t able to have her in my life, but now I have the big sister I always wanted. I am so much happier now and I feel like everything is just better because I have her.”After connecting earlier this year, the sisters met face to face when Weiner flew to Sweden for her younger sister’s birthday in June. She has also connected her younger sister with their biological mother, as Weiner set up a group video call for them to all come together.In time, the sisters hope to travel to Colombia to meet her in person too.They might have missed out on so many years together, but they are certainly making up for it now, as Moe said that their connection feels “so normal and natural.”It has been an incredible journey for Weiner to learn that she is in fact an older sibling, and that she can provide support and empathy for a younger sister after all. She can’t help but thank the social-media algorithm for bringing them together.”If I had never posted on social media, I would have never found out that I had a sister. Going with your gut and thinking positively that something could work is really important,” Weiner said.Do you have any viral videos or pictures that you want to share? We want to see the best ones! Send them in to life@newsweek.com and they could appear on our site.