Two twins who were conceived three weeks apart have been born at the Royal United Hospital in Bath in what has been described as a “miracle” superfetation event.
There have only been a few recorded cases of such a thing happening across the world, but it happened to Rebecca Roberts of Trowbridge.
The 39-year-old fell pregnant with her daughter, Rosalie, when she was already pregnant with her son, Noah.
Rebecca said: “I got pregnant when I was already pregnant.
“I had a scan which showed two babies, when I told Rhys, who wasn’t allowed in with me due to corona, he didn’t believe me.”
“It was only when I showed him the printout and we could clearly see two babies we realised we were having twins.”
The mum-to-be was informed one baby was much larger than the other, and as the pregnancy progressed investigations were carried out to figure out why that might be.
Rebecca said: “It was an incredibly stressful time because the doctors were trying to work out what was going on.
“There was talk of a virus, of chromosome problems like Edwards, cystic fibrosis, and other hugely stressful things. At one point they were not sure if she would survive.
“It’s hard to comprehend the amount of uncertainty I felt back then when I was pregnant. I didn’t really talk about it as we didn’t know what was going on. Now I’m just hugely relieved that I have two beautiful babies.”
As investigations continued, a doctor from the Royal United Hospital in Bath said perhaps it was superfetation – where in extremely rare circumstances another egg is released in ovulation and another successful pregnancy happens while someone is already pregnant.
The theory was discounted by others who thought there must be something else going on. Yet doctors thought perhaps it was the ovulation boosting drug Rebecca had been given to increase her chance of getting pregnant.
Rebecca said: “The stress was unreal, every day was a struggle and then Rosalie’s umbilical cord stopped working about a month before she was born.
“I had that fear until they were born by elected caesarean section on September 17 at the Royal United Hospital in Bath.”