A Massachusetts mother gave birth to two sets of identical twins on Thursday, a wildly rare delivery that few medical professionals get to see in their lifetimes.
Ashley Ness, 35, gave birth to the quadruplets, two boys and two girls, early Thursday morning at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
The rarity of such a pregnancy is “like, 1 in 10 million,” Dr. Ahmet Baschat, the director of the Center for Fetal Therapy, told People.
“If she were playing the lottery, if she’s this lucky, she would be very rich,” added Baschat, who was not involved in caring for Ness.
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Ness’s pregnancy was made possible by two eggs that were fertilized at the same time, with each fertilized egg dividing again, Baschat said. Each split egg remained encased in its own placenta, leading to the birth of two sets of identical twins, unlike traditional quadruplets, in which each of the four children would represent an individually fertilized egg and be separately encased.
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The babies were delivered after 28 weeks and two days, around 12 weeks earlier than a full-term pregnancy, and they will now spend roughly the next eight weeks at Mass General for Children, where they are already under the care of the staff in the neonatal intensive care unit, according to a spokesperson for the hospitals. Ness, who has been hospitalized at the Massachusetts hospital since July 6, says she feels “amazing.”
Ness is already a mother of one daughter and shares a three-bedroom home with her boyfriend and his two sons, according to the report, which also noted she previously had four miscarriages and was not expecting to give birth to more children.
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“It’s truly been just a blessing after a blessing,” Ness said. “I was like, ‘Oh man, I’m going to mix them up. I’m going to forget who’s who. They’re going to play tricks on me. This is going to be crazy.'”
A GoFundMe page has been set up for Ness by her friends. As of Friday afternoon, $19,789 has been raised.
