Pregnant Woman Becomes Pregnant Again Just 3 Weeks Later, Giving Birth To Rare 'Super Twins'

Every pregnancy is special, but every now and then we come across birth stories that are just incredible and even unbelievable. Such is the case of mom Rebecca Roberts, 39, a mom from the United Kingdom who found out she was pregnant again 3 weeks after she had already confirmed her pregnancy.

 In a report by The Washington Post, Rebecca and her partner, Rhys Weaver, 43, had been trying to conceive a baby for several years and were overjoyed when they finally got a positive result. She confirmed her pregnancy and got her first ultrasound at 7 weeks, were they heard a steady heartbeat from their baby.

Five weeks later, when she was 12 weeks pregnant, Rebecca went for another ultrasound appointment. Here, the sonographer spotted something unusual: Roberts was carrying twins — but there was a three-week difference between the two babies, with one less developed than the other.

In the Instagram account @roberts.supertwins, Rebecca recalled feeling “gobsmacked” when she heard the news that she was carrying twins. “I felt like the moment wasn’t real. Soooo many emotions were running [through] me,” she wrote.

She — and even her doctors — couldn’t believe it. But her case is a real but extremely rare pregnancy phenomenon called “superfetation,” where two eggs are released from the ovary on two separate occasions. It also happened in 2016 to an Australian couple, and during that year, only 10 other cases were known to have happened globally.

What is superfetation?

Typically, when a woman is pregnant, her body recognizes it, and the ovaries stop releasing eggs into the uterus due to hormonal and physical changes. But in Rebecca’s case, another egg was still released even after she already got pregnant.

“Instead of stopping ovulation, she released another egg about three or four weeks after the first one, and the egg somehow miraculously managed to fertilize and implant in her uterus,” Rebecca’s obstetrician, Dr. David Walker, tells The Washington Post.

Rebecca’s doctors only considered her pregnancy as a superfetation after regularly scanning her twins and seeing that the other baby was “much smaller” and “consistently three weeks behind.

“My initial reaction was how had I missed the second twin. And following this, I was slightly relieved that it was not my mistake but a quite extraordinary pregnancy,” Dr. Walker tells ABC News.

While Rebecca’s pregnancy progressed normally, it was also considered high-risk due to her age and because she was carrying multiples. At one point, she and her partner were told that the younger twin may not survive.

“Anything that can go wrong with a pregnancy is more common with twin pregnancies. But with a three-week difference, you don’t want to compromise the smaller twin by delivering too early. You have to keep a really close eye,” Dr. Walker told The Washington Post. “The delivery was crucial in this case.”

In September 2020, Rebecca had to give birth at just over 33 weeks because the smaller twin’s umbilical cord was not functioning normally and was affecting her growth. Finally, her babies, a son whom they named Noah and a daughter they named Rosalie, were born.

Both twins had to stay in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), but Rosalie, the younger twin, ended up spending 95 days in the NICU. She was technically just 30 weeks and 6 days at birth, and she weighed only 2 pounds.

Her little warriors managed to overcome the challenges and were eventually discharged. “Rosalie was clear of any abnormalities,” Rebecca shares in the twins’ Instagram account.

Noah and Rosalie are now 6 months old, although Rebecca notes that their real age difference is “noticeable.” Rosalie is much smaller and less advanced than her brother, but their father, Rhys, is confident that she will eventually catch up.

In the twins’ Instagram account, Rebecca always calls her twins her miracles and her children are proof that it does really happen.

“I feel blessed beyond belief. I love them so much,” she writes.

Click here for another unbelievable pregnancy where a mom found out she was pregnant the same day she was about to give birth.

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