Twins’ amazing double delivery
Identical sisters give birth just hours apart
IN an amazing coincidence, identical twin sisters Monica Murnane and Natalie Haugh have given birth to daughters within hours of each other.
The joy started when Natalie went into labour on Sunday morning with baby Mylah born at St John of God Hospital at 8.45pm, weighing 3.1kg.
Not to be outdone, Monica, who went into St John of God Hospital to visit her new niece on Sunday, returned nine hours later to give birth to her own bundle of joy.
“I came into the hospital at 6.45am (Monday) but had no idea I was going to give birth so quickly,” Monica said.
By 8.35am Monica’s bub, Emily, had arrived, weighing 3.45kg.
She said the arrival of the girls was a coincidence as the sisters had different due dates.
“We were both keen to have a two-year age gap between each of our children,” she said.
Remarkably the sisters have older children who were born five weeks apart two years ago.
The family of the 31-yearold twins from Belmont say the pair are inseparable — living within 500m of each other and both working at the Western Victoria Primary Health Network.
The pair also have lunch at work together and attend the gym at the same time.
Emily and Mylah are the third and fourth greatgrandchild for Torquay pop John Milton, who also has seven grandchildren.
“We are thrilled but this will keep us busy,” Mr Milton said.
Monash University senior lecturer in statistics Greg Markowsky said the probability of two 31-year-old women having babies within 12 hours of each other was two in 100,000.
“We used the Australian birthrate of women aged 31 (11.7 per cent) to determine the probability,” Mr Markowsky said.