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Life

16th Apr 2021

“Such a mixture of emotions” Mum becomes pregnant twice in three weeks

Laura Cunningham

This is far from your regular twin pregnancy.

After a long fertility journey, Rebecca Roberts and her partner Rhys Weaver were thrilled to find out they were expecting their first child together.

A few weeks later, they discovered they were having twins and were understandably surprised as there was no indication of two babies at an earlier scan. “There was such a mixture of emotions. It was really shocking to be told there were two babies instead of one.”

But the surprises kept coming, when the couple learned that there was a three-week size difference between the two babies. In a phenomenon known as superfetation, Rebecca had conceived a second child while already pregnant with a first.

With limited information on the rare condition available, doctors were concerned about whether Rosalie, the smallest of the two, would survive. “It wasn’t all happy and rainbows like you expect a pregnancy to be. It was quite scary,” said Rebecca. “With twins it’s scary already, and then because of my age and the fact that they were conceived at different points. And then we were told that all the odds were against Rosalie.”

Doctors had to induce Rebecca at 33 weeks, because Rosalie had an issue with her umbilical cord that prevented her from growing. Of course this meant that although the pregnant was at 33 weeks, Rosalie was only at 30-week gestation.

Thankfully she was a little fighter and both babies were ok, after some time in the NICU. Rosalie’s big brother Noah arrived weighing 4 pounds, 10 ounces at birth. Rosalie was just 2 pounds, 7 ounces.

Speaking about her baby joy Rebecca told Popsugar, “Every day I look at them and think, ‘Wow, I’m so lucky.’ I wanted another child for years and years and years. Then we got pregnant and were blessed with two babies. It’s like, wow, this was worth waiting for.”

Two absolute cuties, too.