‘HE HAD THE SNIP... THEN WE HAD TWINS!'
HELENE AND SIMON WERE HAPPY WITH TWO KIDS − THEN LIFE DELIVERED A DOUBLE SURPRISE
When Helene Rushby woke up one day feeling very ill, she immediately put it down to a virus and assumed it would soon run its course.
But her nausea and vomiting only got worse as the days progressed, and soon she had no choice but to seek help from her GP.
“I went to the doctor and he asked me if I could be pregnant,” Helene, 35, exclusively tells New Idea. And I said, ‘Not a chance in hell!’”
That’s because in 2013, Helene’s husband Simon, 36, had undergone a vasectomy after the couple’s mutual decision that their family was complete with their two children, Cooper, now 8, and Zoe, 6.
“We had no reservations about booking in for it, but because we were so young, they tried to talk us out of it,” the Canberra woman recalls.
“We had to sign a document saying it was a permanent procedure and that we understood what that meant.”
To make sure the procedure was effective, Simon’s sperm was tested three months and then six months after the snip.
“Both times they came back at a zero count, so it worked,” Helene explains.
So imagine their shock when three years later, Helene received blood test results that showed she didn’t have glandular fever as she and her doctor suspected – but that she was indeed pregnant.
“I was horrified,” Helene admits. “I thought, ‘How would I tell Simon?’”
But there was another life-changing discovery to come before Helene had a chance to break the news to her husband.
“I’m in medical research so when I saw the hormone levels on the blood results were three or four times higher than they should have been at that point, I knew that I was either further along than I thought – or it was twins.”
To say that Simon was in total disbelief when his wife told him she was expecting is an understatement.
“He just cracked a joke asking if he should be worried if it was his,” Helene smiles. “Then when I told him I had a feeling it was twins, his reaction was: ‘That’s not even funny.’”
At the dating scan at seven weeks, Helene received the news she had predicted – but was still very much in denial about. There were in fact two babies growing in her belly.
“I went into immediate shock,” she remembers.
“I just called Simon and had to ask him to pick me up because I was in no state to drive.”
“Simon was just so quiet after that. All he could say was: ‘Well, I’m off to find us a bigger car.’”
As they struggled to process
the unexpected doubling of their family, Helene and Simon returned to the doctor who performed the vasectomy for answers. It turns out he was just as shocked as they were.
“In his 25 years of doing the procedure, he’d never had a vasectomy fail and produce twins,” Helene quips.
The statistics for one baby being born after a vasectomy is 1 in 30,000, so this was an extremely rare occurrence.
“Simon provided a sample and it turned out he was very much fertile,” Helene says.
“And to have fraternal (non identical) twins with two eggs and two sperm is even more rare.”
The doctor explained that Simon’s vas deferens had gradually reconnected where the incision was made through the body’s regeneration process.
“It was like he never had the procedure,” Helene adds.
Before the babies were due, Simon booked in for the $900 procedure again – and this time the doctor offered to perform it free of charge.
Their next hospital visit came a few months later, with the arrival of their precious boys, Mason and Carter, who were four weeks premature.
Helene h her tubes tied following the emergency caesarean delivery “just so we had all the ‘t’s crossed”.
It was soon after the now 2-year-old twins came home that Helene and Simon’s uncertain feelings about their new family situation changed in a terrifying instant.
“They caught a cold at home and their lungs shut down and had to go back into the ICU,” the mum-of-four recalls emotionally.
“At that point we realised how lucky we were to have them and that they’re a blessing. We had a lot of financial pressure, but now that they’re here, we would not have it any other way.”
And yes, with this family’s love cup well and truly overflowing, there is “not a chance in hell” that Mason and Carter will have a surprise baby brother or sister.
“We’ve had Simon’s sperm checked every year since he had it redone and will keep doing it,” Helene laughs.
“Just to be 100 per cent sure.”
THE BROKEN ARROW KILLINGS
Family annihilation is a distressingly common crime. But an entire household being attacked by two brothers who had plotted the killings for years is a rare, particularly ferocious event.
This is exactly what happened in the case of the Bevers, a family who lived in the US town of Broken Arrow in Oklahoma.
At about 11.30pm on July 22, 2015, police received a 911 call from 12-year-old Daniel Bever, who claimed his two older brothers were embarking on a murderous rampage.
When officers arrived at the home, blood was splattered around the porch. Two of the Bever brothers, Robert, 18, and Michael, 16, had fled the scene into a wooded area behind the property. They were quickly apprehended, while the full extent of their bloodthirsty attack slowly came to light.
Robert and Michael had killed their father David, 52, after stabbing him 28 times; their mother April, 44, was found with at least 48 stab wounds on her body; Daniel, 12, was killed by nine stab wounds, Christopher, 7, had six stab wounds and 5-year-old Victoria’s body had 18 wounds.
The only survivors were sisters 13-year-old Crystal Bever, who was in a serious condition with a slit throat and stab wounds to her stomach and arms, and 2-year-old Autumn, who was unharmed in her crib.
Bleeding profusely, Crystal identified her two older brothers as the assailants behind the vicious murders.
As police looked into the family history of the two killer brothers, they were horrified to learn Michael and Robert had
“BECAUSE OF THE SEVERITY OF HER INJURIES, THEIR MOTHER APPEARED TO BE THE FOCUS OF THE ATTACK”
been planning the grisly killings for years. The teenage boys had a sick fascination with murder. In the years before the 2015 slaying, Robert and Michael would stay up late and bond over their shared desire to kill members of their family. They also expressed a desire to imitate the Columbine school shooting. Both brothers also claimed their parents David and April had been abusive, but no evidence of such abuse has been made public. Due to the severity of her fatal injuries, an autopsy of April indicated the boys’ mother was the ‘focus’ of their attack.
During her testimony, Crystal said the killing spree was triggered after their mother went into the boys’ bedroom and told them to do the dishes. Crystal recalled one of her brothers asking, “Should we do it now?” before slashing her throat.
According to reports, Crystal and Autumn have been adopted.
In 2016, Robert pleaded guilty to five counts of murder and one count of assault and battery with intent to kill. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
And in 2018, Michael was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
• Watch ‘Killer Siblings’ on streaming service hayu now.