(CNN) – Initially, baby Noah was alone, and he grew in his mother’s womb reports.
Noah’s first close-ups, taken by ultrasound at seven and ten weeks after pregnancy, showed 39-year-old mother Rebecca Roberts and 43-year-old father Rhys Weaver the baby they had been trying to conceive for more than a year become.
Then, three months after the pregnancy, Noah suddenly had company.
An ultrasound taken in week 12 showed that Noah had an unexpected little sister – the twins Rosalie.
“I got pregnant while I was already pregnant, which was absolutely crazy … because it’s not supposed to happen,” Rebecca said.
Called a superfetation. Getting so pregnant while already carrying a baby is so rare that one 2008 study found that less than ten cases were recorded in the world.
Doctors told the couple the babies were conceived about three weeks apart, Rebecca said.
“They realized the baby was growing three weeks behind the first one, and then they said to me, ‘They think it’s a superfetal pregnancy,'” she said.
“I could not believe it happened to me,” Rebecca added with a laugh. ‘But it did – it’s delicious. It’s like winning the lottery. ”
Dad felt the same way: “I was delighted to have one child, but even more so for twins. The work is done in one go! And then Rebecca did some research, and we realized how unique and how happy we were. ‘
An incredibly rare event
Atlanta gynecologist Lillian Schapiro says superfetions are rare for a variety of reasons.
First, females usually ovulate only once per cycle and release one or more eggs at a time. If fertilization by the sperm of the man is successful, the egg or eggs are implanted in the uterus, the pregnancy begins and no further ovulation takes place.
“If a woman has twins,” Schapiro is said, “two eggs are released simultaneously. And in the unusual case of triplets, the eggs are all released with one ovulation. Identical twins occur when a freshly fertilized egg divides.
In Rebecca’s case, the egg was fertilized and implanted during the first ovulation, and ‘somehow she ovulated again during that same cycle’, Schapiro explained. “Another egg was also fertilized – became a different embryo – and at different times both embryos were implanted in the uterus.”
Another reason superfetals are extraordinary, Schapiro said, is that once pregnancy begins, the uterus is no longer a hospitable place for implantation. This means that the second embryo “managed to implant and grow at a stage that we would not think it could grow.”
“We have almost never seen where two embryos start to develop at different times,” Schapiro said. “It’s just amazing.”
Rebecca had just taken one dose of fertility drugs to stimulate ovulation before she became pregnant with Noah. While this may be one of the reasons for this rare occurrence, Rebecca said, it could also be a ‘medical miracle’.
‘Little, little baby’
Initially, Rebecca and Rhys were concerned about the development of baby Rosalie in the womb, and were concerned that the health of her babies would be so far behind her older brother.
“It can go either way,” Rebecca said. ‘Because the baby is so much smaller, there may be something wrong with it and it may not survive. This is usually the case.
“But they said this baby was actually growing constantly,” she said. “It was a relief. It was a great relief. ”
Both babies were born by caesarean section in September 2020 and had to spend time in separate neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). Rosalie, who was born with a 7 gram pee, was sent to a special NICU, about 15 minutes from the NICU, which was cared for by Noah, who was born at £ 10.
“She was a tiny, tiny little baby that just fit in our hands, and even though he was small, you could see he was a much bigger baby,” Rebecca said.
“It was very difficult. “I had a major operation and then our babies were also in two separate hospitals,” she said. “So it was a lot of hard work to travel between the two.”
Noah was able to come home in three weeks, but little Rosalie remained in intensive care for 95 days and came home just before Christmas.
Today, almost 7 months old, Noah is still ahead of Rosalie, but Rhys said: ‘She’s a small troop. She has her own little personality, but I have no real worries. ”
Noah rolled over and “actually shows signs he’s trying to crawl so he’ll be gone soon, which will be nice,” Rebecca added.
‘They both talk, which is really sweet, because they talk to each other. It is beautiful. They are really very good at interacting with each other. It’s beautiful to look at. ”