Imagine getting pregnant while you’re already pregnant. Well, it could happen. You have a better chance of being struck by lightning but it could happen.
It’s called superfetation and occurs when a woman continues to ovulate after she becomes pregnant.
Normally, certain things occur in the body that usually prevents a woman from continuing to ovulate after she becomes pregnant. However, there is a one in several million chance that she will continue to ovulate. And if she has sex, she could become pregnant with another embryo that would be a different age.
While superfetation is more common in animals, there are about 11 reported cases in humans, according to Good Morning America’s Chief Health and Medical Editor Dr. Jennifer Ashton.
“I want people to know you have a better chance of being struck by lightning or winning the lottery than having this happen to you if you’re a woman with a uterus,” Ashton said.
Jessica Allen’s case superfetation was even rarer than a typical case of superfetation.
She was pregnant through in vitro fertilization with another couple’s baby and then got pregnant with her own biological child.
Allen, a San Diego-based mom who was already a mother to two boys, decided that she would become a surrogate.
She was paid $30,000 plus expenses to carry a child for a Chinese couple, the Liu family. This allowed her to be a stay-at-home mom and save up for a new home with her partner Wardell Jasper.
“No woman in the world should have to live their life without experiencing the love and the bond between a mother and a child,” Allen told Good Morning America.
Allen eventually became pregnant through the IVF treatments.
But six weeks after that her doctor told her that there was a second baby in her womb. She was never told the babies were in two separate sacs.
“He goes, ‘Well, I definitely see that there’s another baby. The chance of the embryo splitting is very small but it does happen.’ So, I was very surprised,” Allen explains.
Allen originally thought that she was giving birth to identical twin boys via c-section. However, everyone started to become suspicious once the boys were born.
One boy had much lighter skin and looked Chinese and the other didn’t.
The babies were taken away after she gave birth and she was only shown a photo them. It was obvious that they weren’t identical. A DNA test determined that one of the babies was Allen’s biological son.
According to the Independent, the surrogate agency tried to charge Allen $22,000 in compensation since the Lius family didn’t want to keep a baby who wasn’t a biological match.
The Allens couldn’t afford that so the agency put their baby up for adoption and had a family lined up to take him away.
“I didn’t even know I was pregnant with you,” she said in tears. “I carried my own child and I didn’t even know he was mine.”
They then tried to charge them $7,000 more for bureaucratic expenses and for looking after their son.
The agency disputed the Allens’ claims.
Experts say it’s important to make sure situations like these are worked out in legal documents. Find out the results of this nightmare situation in the video below.
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