In the field of bizarre pregnancies, it’s hard to beat a screenplay straight out of an episode of I didn’t know I was pregnantBut this one deserves an honorable mention: a woman who gave birth to a baby while already pregnant, only to give birth to the “twins” with two separate due dates.
It’s something you’re told just isn’t happening, but it happened to 39-year-old Rebecca Roberts, who struggled with infertility for over a year before finally getting pregnant. She and her partner were over the moon with the first ultrasound appointment, but the second was unexpected. The Washington Post reports that the English couple was shocked when the 12A weekly ultrasound appointment revealed that Roberts was carrying another – less developed – baby.
Of the Washington Post, our emphasis:
But these weren’t typical twins, Roberts learned. Her pregnancy was diagnosed as a superfetation, a rare condition in which a woman who is already pregnant has another baby.
Roberts’ pregnancy is one of the few cases of superfetation recorded in the medical literature, said her midwife, David Walker.
Superfetation is so uncommon that Walker struggled to diagnose it at first. In his 25 years as a midwife, it was something he had never seen before.
“It just won’t happen,” Walker said, adding that it took several scans before he could confidently diagnose the condition.
[…]
Normally, hormonal and physical changes during pregnancy prevent new conception from occurring. That was not the case for Roberts.
“Instead of stopping ovulation, she released another egg about three or four weeks after the first, and somehow the egg miraculously managed to fertilize and implant in her uterus,” Walker said .
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The extra baby was a welcome surprise, but the complications that came with it were not. Superfetation is rare, and the younger twins usually don’t make it.
About 33 weeks into the pregnancy, the younger twins’ umbilical cords were not working and a caesarean section was performed to avoid further obstacles. So on September 17, Roberts gave birth to Noah – the older, bigger twin – and Rosalie – the younger, smaller, surprising twin. The twins were kept in a neonatal intensive care unit, Noah for three weeks, Rosalie for 95 days. But now the twins have been home for several months and are happy and healthy.
And yes, the age difference is clear. Check out this recent Instagram post featuring the twins:
As the couple related Post
“Even though they were born on the same day, there is definitely an age difference between them”, [Roberts] added. “It falls on.”
Rosalie is still much smaller and less sophisticated than her brother, “but she’s catching up quickly,” she said [Rhys] Weaver, a mortgage adviser.
Bodies, man.