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Identical twins use 'twin power' to deliver babies hours apart

A pair of identical twin sisters say they used their “twin power” to deliver their babies only hours apart after one sister went past her due date.

New England sisters Rachael McGeoch and Beccy Pistone both became pregnant at the same time with their due dates only two weeks apart. “We talked about how awesome it would be to go into labor the same day and be in the same place,” McGeoch told local news station WHDH.

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The problem? The sisters live 140 kilometres apart in Massachusetts, with McGeoch in Charlestown and Pistone in Brewster.

When McGeoch didn’t make her Aug. 1 due date, she decided to get induced on the 13th — which was her sister’s due date. So Pistone and her husband made the two-hour drive to meet McGeoch at Mount Auburn hospital in Cambridge, where soon after, Pistone started feeling contractions.

Beccy began to feel contractions when she was near her sister. Coincidence? Photo: Facebook
Beccy began to feel contractions when she was near her sister. Coincidence? Photo: Facebook

“We thought if we could just get together then we would both go into labour,” McGeoch told WHDH. “And they were right! Twin power at its finest.”

McGeoch and Pistone did not return Yahoo Beauty’s request for comment; however, WHDH reports that after labouring in side-by-side rooms McGeoch delivered William Charles Bubenicek at 10:41 p.m. on Aug. 15 and Pistone birthed Andi Isabella Pistone at 6:54 p.m. on Aug. 16.

The twins welcomed a boy and a girl just hours apart. Photo: Facebook
The twins welcomed a boy and a girl just hours apart. Photo: Facebook

Amazingly, the sister’s experience isn’t unique.

In 2014, a pair of British identical twins named Sarah Fidler and Heather Richardson became pregnant on the same day. They ended up giving birth 13 hours apart, despite their differing due dates. According to the Daily Mail, Sarah said, “To me it feels as though we’ve had twins ourselves. Not only have I got a son, but I’ve got a daughter as well.”

And in 2016, Sarah Mariuz and Leah Rodgers, identical twins who live in La Jolla, California, and Denver, respectively, gave birth on the same day in their own cities — both at 1:18 a.m. Rogers told Today that she knew her sister was expecting before she divulged. “And I had this crazy twin intuition — I call it my ‘twintuition’ — and I knew she was pregnant too,” she said.

These sisters’ uncanny experience isn’t reserved for twins.

Sisters Corey Struve Talbott and Katie Struve Morgan delivered their babies — whom they call “twin cousins” — 15 minutes apart, and the children even share similar names: Ryatt Rae and Indie Mae. In August, Corey told Cosmopolitan about the two baby girls: “They’ve been together since day one, and they have a really cute little bond — almost like twins the way they act and react to each other. They’re really natural with each other; you can tell they definitely know each other almost like sisters.”

As coincidental as these cases seem, Natalie Diaz, author of What to Do When You’re Having Two and founder of Twiniversity, an online support network for parents of multiples, isn’t that surprised.

“The bond between twins goes beyond anything a parent can teach them,” Diaz, a mother of 12-year-old fraternal twins, tells Yahoo Beauty. “The truth is, we don’t know why a set of twins would give birth so closely together. We just know the occurrence is not that rare.”

Some say Rachael and Beccy's twin births are common in the twin world. Photo: Facebook
Some say Rachael and Beccy's twin births are common in the twin world. Photo: Facebook

According to Diaz, twins often plan their pregnancies together, which could account for joint births. In other cases, an induction on the other sister’s due date, as with Rachael McGeoch and Beccy Pistone, could result in well-timed deliveries. Or, since twins often have a strong sense of empathy toward each other, who is to say that one sister’s labor can’t trigger the same event in the other?

“My kids barely feel their own shots at the doctor,” says Diaz. “But when one is in pain, the other cries.”

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