"I thought something awful had happened," Rebecca Roberts said, upon being told that she was pregnant again 12 weeks into her first pregnancy.
Rebecca Roberts was already 12-weeks pregnant when she found out she was pregnant –– again! –– with her second child. The ultrasound technician fell silent when the doctor discovered the mom-to-be was no longer just carrying one child, but rather, two.
"I thought something awful had happened," Roberts told Today Parents. "But it wasn't something awful. It was something incredible."
In a rare occurrence called superfetation, a second pregnancy can be implanted a few days or weeks after an initial pregnancy occurs.
"A new egg is fertilized by a new sperm" Dr. Lisa Thiel, a maternal fetal medicine specialist in Michigan, told the network. She says there are only a few confirmed cases.
"The reason this is so rare is because hormones are released by the woman’s body to prevent further ovulation and a thick mucous is created at the cervix to prevent any further sperm from entering the uterus at that time."
Roberts is still "wrapping her head around" it, but couldn't be more proud of her two healthy babies, a boy and a girl, born in September last year.
Noah was conceived three weeks earlier and born at 4 pounds and 10 ounces, while his sister, Rosalie, weighed 2 pounds and 7 ounces.
She calls them her "super twins."
