Twins aren't twins
Categories: Babies, Pregnancy & birth, Siblings
Imagine being on the pill and then finding out you're pregnant. That would be quite a shock, I'm sure. Now imagine it happens twice. I suppose one might start to get a bit upset with the pharmaceutical company. But what if it happened twice, in three weeks? That's what happened to Amelia Spence who got pregnant not once but twice in the course of three weeks, all while on the pill.It turns out that in rare cases, a woman's body may continue releasing eggs for fertilization after she has already become pregnant. This is called superfetation and occurs in some animals, but is very rare in humans. It has got to be even more rare when the mother is taking contraceptive pills at the time she gets pregnant.
Ame and Lia, now five months old, were born just minutes apart, but were conceived three weeks apart. Doctors spotted the difference in development early on. "We looked at the screen and the doctor pointed out that one foetus still looked like a blob, whereas the other had four visible limbs. It was such a marked difference," said Miss Spence. "One foetus was 12 weeks old, whilst they said the other was three weeks behind, at nine weeks old. I had become pregnant twice on two separate occasions."
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jenna 9-30-2007 @ 4:45PM
Interesting. I had always wondered if this could happen but was assured that, no, it couldn't.
Interesting indeed.
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Aundria 10-01-2007 @ 12:06AM
WOW!! Amazing! Double the blessings!!
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Heather 10-01-2007 @ 5:28PM
When I was in the hospital pregnant with my dd ( preeclampsia) there was a women in the next bed who had this. Her babies were 2 different sizes. She was undergoing many tests and it turns out they were different ages. They were not twins . They were 6-8 weeks apart!
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Michele W 10-03-2007 @ 10:33AM
Well I am amazed but now scared to death. Being that the pill is what i rely on and had trouble with everything else, all i can say is great!!! now I have to woryy about this. All I can say is that if you are on birth control and wind up pregnant and then to find out there are 2 fetuses not the same age but you concieved twice while you are one the pill can only be a blessing brought on by God. I am not a very religous person but I am one who believes all things happen for a reason, then you could only explain this as it was meant to be some how. Not saying that I wouldn't cry at first cause 1 is good enough for me after all the trouble I went through in delivering and stuff. It would be one heck of a shock!
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Taylor 11-26-2007 @ 1:13PM
Well, I just hope that they treat the children as though they are fraternal twins. Otherwise it's just going to be too complicated. For all practical purposes, they are fraternal twins.
They're still going to feel the twin bond, even if they did begin to develop at different times in the womb.
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