Multiples are always newsworthy when they are born, but in 2007, there were some especially unusual stories about twins, triplets, quads and quints. Here is just a sampling of some of the items that made the headlines:
- A two-year-old girl in India underwent surgery to remove extra limbs after she was born with four arms and four legs. Doctors say she was joined to a “parasitic twin,” which stopped developing in the womb. The fetus’s body parts were then absorbed by the surviving child. The little girl, Lakshmi, is named after the four-armed Hindu goddess of wealth and is considered by some to be a reincarnated goddess.
- A mother and her daughter, Andrea, came face-to-face with Andrea’s identical twin during a chance meeting—a twin neither ever knew existed! Apparently, a husband-and-wife doctor team delivered the twin babies and, without telling the parents, adopted one as their own. The doctors claim that the biological mother knew about the twins and only wanted one, but the biological parents deny the doctors’ version of the story.
- In May 2007, Chris and Lori Coble lost all three of their young children in a horrible traffic accident. Now, Lori is pregnant again, and expecting triplets! Coincidentally, they lost two daughters and a son, and the triplets are also two girls and a boy.
- In August 2007, a Canadian woman gave birth to rare identical quadruplets. All four girls were listed in good condition even though they were born two months early. Chances of having identical quadruplets are about 1 in 13 million, and there are less than 50 sets in the world.
- Over Labor Day weekend, a woman gave birth to Florida’s first set of sextuplets. The five boys and a girl, all weighing between 2 and 3 pounds, were born more than two months early.
- On December 21, 2007, Ashley Patterson, 20, beat 500,000-to-1 odds to give birth to identical triplets in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. A single mother, Patterson was told by doctors that she could never have children as an ovarian cyst was blocking egg production.
- A set of ten-year-old quintuplets is in the midst of a custody battle between their parents in which the father is accusing the mother of “serious psychological control issues” for keeping the children on a strict vegan diet. The father claims she even restricts them from visiting their paternal grandparents because they own leather furniture.
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