Everyone loves to roll her eyes in bewilderment at a good “I didn’t know I was pregnant until I delivered” story. This is especially true of anyone who has ever actually been pregnant herself and knew darn well she was expecting.
This latest version of that crazy-but-true tale comes out of Iowa, where a woman walked into a clinic complaining of pain in her stomach and found out after an ultrasound she was actually 6 months pregnant with twins, according to WHOTV.
Turns out the new mom Shelby Magnani was actually carrying a rare type of twin known as “monoamniotic,” in which the two babies share both a placenta and amniotic sac. Such babies only have about a 50 percent survival rate — but Magnani’s are expected to be just fine.
As her fiance, James Croskey, described the situation, “It’s pretty nuts.”
Yeah, I’d say. As a new mom of twins myself, I find such a story to be about as likely as my chances of seeing a unicorn prancing in my back yard. It’s so impossible, I need a new word for impossible.
Here are just a couple of the ways I knew I was pregnant with twins, no ultrasound necessary: I looked nine-months pregnant at about 20 weeks, and I could clearly feel—and see—two babies kicking up a storm in there. Not to mention a whole array of distinct and weird symptoms of pregnancy.
It’s fortunate that I had the symptoms — and the prenatal care — during a full-term twin pregnancy, because lord knows I needed every last minute and resource to prepare for a life change about as subtle as a semi-truck driving through my front door. So all I can say is: Godspeed to the new family of four!
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Birth Stories: Delivering Twins
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