Eventually, I would love to be a mother, so pregnancy interests me. I often look online to see what I have to look forward to. On my dad’s side, twins run in the family so it is not unlikely I could have twins. What is really crazy is twins can be born with two different fathers according to Evonne Lack. I got in a little debate about this topic once with my own mom because I just did not think that could be possible, but as usual, mom is right. It is medically possible that a woman can get pregnant by two men at the same time.
Despite what some may believe, I find the female body to be insanely wonderful and complex. Lindsey Bever’s Washington Post article breaks it all down. Every time a woman ovulates, she releases an egg, but in these cases, two eggs are released. Sex with one man can fertilize one egg, then if sex with another man happens the same time she ovulated the other egg, boom. Two different fathers. So technically the twins are half siblings. My mind is spinning right now.
(Picture source http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1378184/Woman-discovers-twins-sons-DIFFERENT-fathers-The-Maury-Show.html)
In the same article, Bever goes on to explain that there are probably more cases like this than the medical world knows of because obviously that can be a little embarrassing for the mother, or the family doesn’t know. Rosemary Black tells of a 2009 case in Texas where a woman’s cheating lead to twins with different fathers. This woman is bold for telling her story and not feeling too ashamed, but I guess it is better to embrace and learn from situations like this instead of hiding from it. In Haimy Assefa’s CNN article, a woman learned her twins had different fathers in a DNA test in trying to get child support, but she could only get it for one of her twins. I’m sure there are some children who do look alike but are fathered by different men. I mean it is not unusual for a child to only look like their mother. I can not imagine how much of a whirlwind it would be to go through this process.
The DNA is good data and I do not know that there could be an experiment involving twins with two different fathers for ethical reasons. At least not in humans, and I don’t think animal systems are complex enough to have a strong enough relation to humans when it comes to childbirth. Having a twin as a half sibling would be weird. If you grow up that way your whole life I guess it would feel normal though. As a child, I would probably think it was cool, but as i got older I think I would feel embarrassed to tell people because I would be afraid of judgement for my mother. If nothing else, it is definitely a conversation starter! I wonder if a set of twins with two different fathers has ever met twins with the same case.
I absolutely love that you posted about this. We just went over the whole ovulation situation in my psych class yesterday actually! I also find this stuff so fascinating because I cannot wait until the time comes for me to be a mother! The fact that the one woman shared her experience is so brave. I could never do something like that, but I guess it only helped to further our knowledge about the topic. I wonder how rare this situation is, and if there are some cases where the mother doesn’t even realize it happened!
This might be the coolest and most confusing thing I have read yet. I have never heard of “half-twin siblings”. I was wondering if in your research you found any statistics on how common this is.