Woman Gets Pregnant While Already Pregnant
A close friend of mine was 41 weeks pregnant with her first and was anxious to get this little being out of her already. So she ate spicy food and had sex with her husband, sans protection (she was preggers, after all). “He pulled out,” she told me afterwards. “Because, you know, you can never be too careful.” We cracked up over paranoid hubby and that was that.
Turns out he’s not such a dolt after all. It is possible to get pregnant while already pregnant, if you can believe it. Granted, the odds are around a million to one, but it really exists! The medical term is superfetation, which means that two babies are conceived at different times and born on the same day, yet they’re not considered twins because they’re carried in two separate sacs. (Could you imagine?!)
Julia Grovenburg, a 33-year-old from Fort Smith, Arkansas, is one of only 11 women ever reported to conceive while already pregnant. She and her husband Todd tried to have a baby for three years without much luck. But she finally got pregnant and, two and a half weeks later, they conceived another baby. The babies were born on the same day via c-section.
”Initially, at our first ultrasound, the technician suggested we were 11 weeks pregnant,” Julia told the Mirror. ”But since I’d been taking pregnancy tests routinely every month, Todd and I knew that number wasn’t accurate because I’d had my period in-between the time frame.” She goes on to explain how her doctor found the news incredible, “like it was some medical breakthrough he’d discovered.”
Understandably, Julia and Todd were totally freaked out (imagine Googling your condition and realizing that there are only 10 other reported cases in the world). But Julia’s double pregnancy progressed well and she gave birth early, via c-section, to two healthy babies (albeit at different developmental stages). The children, Jillian and Hudson, celebrated their first birthdays earlier this year and, according to the Mirror, they received two separate birthday cakes and two separate Happy Birthday serenades.
To those women who swear off sex while pregs simply because they’re not feeling up to it, we recommend sharing this story with your partner. For those who get even friskier while knocked up, just know that you have a greater chance of winning the lottery than having one of these double pregnancies. Either way, this is one crazy story with a very happy ending.
(Photo: iStockphoto)