Twins Born from Different Mothers

By definition, twins are born by the same mother.

But here are Lauren and Hannah Bernaba, born minutes apart and with almost identical looks.

Biologically, it's just as if they were twins. These girls are the world's first twins to be born on the same day to two different women.

First biological mother Amy Bernaba gave birth to Lauren, weighing 7lb 10oz (3.43 kg); half an hour later, surrogate mom Torry Keay delivered 7lb 3oz (3.3 kg) Hannah. The twins are the result of 12 years of IVF made by Amy and her husband George Bernaba in an effort to conceive a baby brother or sister for their son Jeremy, now 15.

Doctors said that 40-year-old Amy could not carry another baby because of an immune system issue. That's why they appealed to an extremely unusual procedure, implanting eggs fertilized by George's sperm into her womb and also into surrogate Torry's.

Torry did become pregnant, and against all odds, so did Lauren.

The twins are not identical as they came from separate eggs. This type of twins are called dizygotic (from two eggs) and share the same amount of genetic information as regular brothers (theoretically, from 1 to 99 %), only that they have the same age.

Amy was 24 when she gave birth to Jeremy, and the pregnancy "just happened", but two years later when the couple tried to conceive again, her complex fertility problems emerged. The couple spent thousands on 14 IVF trials which resulted in only one pregnancy, but an ultrasound scan at four months discovered the baby had not developed properly and had to be aborted.

Implanting a woman's embryos into the mother and a surrogate at the same time is still extremely rare: only one other case is known, in June 2006, but the girls were born 16 days apart.