Identical twins give birth on the same day in the same hospital
Emily Brown
Featured Image Credit: 9 News
It's a bit of a stereotype that twins do everything together, but two identical sisters from Melbourne, Australia did exactly that when they welcomed their babies at the same hospital on the same day.
How's that for being in sync?
Siblings often start to grow apart a bit as they get older and leave home, but Gillianne Gogas and Nicole Patrikakos, 36, have always been close.
Advert
Nicole told 9News the pair have 'always done everything together', and there's perhaps no better example than when they got pregnant around the same time towards the end of last year.
Amazingly, the twins learned they had the same due date - a fact which they had nine months to process, but which Gillianne said still felt 'quite unbelievable'.
Nicole said the pair have 'always sort of done things in sync', so it really should be no surprise that on 22 August, both Nicole and Gillianne were at the Epworth Freemasons hospital in east Melbourne, ready to give birth.
Gillianne's son, Alexander, arrived at 1.20pm, followed by sister Nicole's baby boy, William, five hours later.
"The timing, you just can't plan something like that. So yeah, disbelief, shock, excitement, all of those emotions," Gillianne said.
The two boys were delivered by the same obstetrician, Dr Joseph Sgroi, who said the twin births were a first not only for him, but for the whole Epworth Freemasons medical team.
"It is not something that is common. It is not commonplace for even sisters to give birth on the same time or on the same day," he commented.
The similarities didn't stop there, either. As well as being born in the same hospital, on the same day, the twins even had the same healthy birth weight of 3.5 kilograms.
"That came as another surprise," Gillianne said.
"Exactly the same," Nicole added.
Dr Sgroi has explained that the baby cousins are actually biologically more like brothers due to their mothers' DNA, saying: "You have got two identical twin girls having their babies at the same time.
"We know that they share 100 percent of their DNA so these two boys, whilst they may be cousins they are actually more akin to brothers in terms of their gene pool."
There is one difference between the sisters - Alexander is Gillianne's third son, while Nicole has just become a mum for the first time.
Still, the families plan to get together for 'an extra big celebration' for the boys' birthdays every year.
"Hopefully they will be as close as we are because it really is a special bond that we have," Nicole said.