Mankind has always been awed with the existence of twins and the bizarre technicalities of
it.
From Superfetation to Heteromaternal twins, here are 10 of the most bizarre twin types.
Their unique stories will render you speechless!
Number 10: Lori and Dori Schappell Born in Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania, Lori
and Dori Schappell are a remarkable set of conjoined twins.
Dori, who hated the fact that her name rhymed with Lori’s, changed it to Reba, and then
to George once she identified herself as male.
Joined at the head, both maintain their personal identities.
Where Lori has a normal growth, George has spina bifida that has restricted his growth
to 4’4” as opposed to Lori’s 5’1”.
To enable movement and other activities, George self-designed a wheelchair for himself, taking
a bar stool as the frame.
Lori has had quite a few boyfriends and was even engaged before her fiancé cried in a
car crash.
George has several pets and has performed as a country singer whereas Lori is a trophy
winning bowler.
The two have beautiful synchronization and respect each other's private lives.
They had spent 24 years in an institution for intellectually disabled in Reading, Pennsylvania
before filing a case against disallowing them from going to college.
Born in the year 1961, they are 55 years old now and are one of the most successful conjoined
twins.
Number 9: Jillian and Hudson Grovenburg Born to Julia and Todd Grovenburg, they are
a case of what one labels as “Superfetation”.
Superfetation is a phenomenon when a woman gets pregnant twice – simultaneously.
Sounds weird?
Here's a breakdown: when Julia was pregnant with Jillian, Jillian was the only child inside
of her – no twins.
It wasn’t until the hormonal issues in her body caused another egg to be released that
Hudson came into existence.
So yes, they are twins – but not really!
This is a super rare condition in the world where a woman got pregnant while she was already
pregnant; there are only 10 recorded cases of it thus far.
The only problem with it is that the second baby will be born prematurely while the first
is being delivered.
“It won’t be a huge issue though,” says a medical journal, “as the difference will
be a few weeks only.”
The babies were born in 2009 in Fort Smith, Arkansas and are leading a healthy, normal
life.
Number 8: Darlene and Diane Nettemeier The identical twins Darlene and Diane stand
out amongst thousands of others for a reason!
It’s because they beat a probability of a million to one.
How?
Listen closely to find out.
In 1998, Darlene and Diane attended a twins’ event at Twinsburg, Ohio.
There they met the handsome Mark and Craig Sanders – another set of identical twins.
In the beginning, there was only Mark amongst the crowd who stood out as an attractive handsome
guy.
It wasn’t until he called his identical twin from his hotel room that they got to
talking.
Eventually, they fell in love and had a twin wedding and even got twin houses built next
to each other with a common backyard.
But the story doesn’t end here!
They created a world record when Diane and Craig gave birth to a set of identical twin
boys.
The world went crazy over the family and their story was printed everywhere!
However, this twin clan believes they’re no different than the ordinary families living
all around them.
Even now, nobody except their husbands and parents can tell the two sisters apart.
Theirs stand to be one of the most bizarre twin stories amongst thousands in the world.
The birth of Colby and Brady, Craig and Diane’s twin boys have made the Houston-based family
real celebrities.
Number 7: Abby and Brittany Hensel Abigail Lorraine and Brittany Lee Hensel are
a pair of conjoined twins.
The most remarkable fact about them is that they’re joined at the head.
This means that the beautiful girls would appear as a body with two heads.
Born in New Germany, Minnesota to Patty and Mike Hensel, the girls attended Lutheran High
School.
The two of them have been featured on the Oprah Winfrey show when they were just 6.
Later on, they went on to be featured in Discovery Channel's “Joined for life” as well as
a number of other shows on the TLC television network.
The two of them have separate upper body parts that are livers, hearts, and pancreas.
Their bottom part, however, is shared.
Number 6: Tuen and Koen Stuart Tuen and Koen are labeled as the two least
like twins, and you’ll know why the moment you see them.
While Tuen is white, Koen is brown.
Born to the Dutch couple Wilma and Willem Stuart, the two of them have always been spatially
apart.
When Wilma was unable to conceive for six straight years after marriage, they decided
to go in for invitro fertilization.
However, everything didn’t go as planned.
When the Stuarts investigated the reason for their kids being spatially different, they
learned that though Tuen was their biological son, Koen was not.
Due to a lab error, another man’s stern had been combined with Wilma’s egg, resulting
in Koen.
Nevertheless, the Stuarts love Koen and Tuen equally.
The two brothers are inseparable and have a bond that is definitely color blind.
The boys do get their share of stares and comments, but they remain unaffected.
They are what we can scientifically label as “bi-spatial twins”.
Though this is common when the parents are of different cases, theirs is a case in which
white parents produced a black baby.
Number 5: Amy and Katie Elliott Amy and Katie Elliott are twins who have different
birthdays.
Katie was born 87 days after Amy.
Maria Jones Elliott, their mother from the city of Glenmore, describes their survival
as a miracle.
When Maria’s water broke at 23 weeks, nobody thought the girls would survive.
However, the doctors tried their best by taking out Amy and putting her in the incubator while
leaving Katie in her mother’s womb.
After three months, Katie was ready to come out to meet her now healthy sister Amy.
The two of them set a world record of having “the longest interval between the births
of a twin”.
For the doctors, the beautiful twins were “a medical correspondent of a gambling win”.
Now both kids have their own birthdays, yet they’ve got the privilege of being twins!
Maria, her husband Chris, their elder daughter Olivia, and son Jack are grateful for having
such blessings endowed on them.
Number 4: The Carolina Twins Millie and Christine McCoy were conjoined
twins joined at the lower spine and were at a right angle to one another.
In the 1850s, they were so different from the rest that they made great money when putting
on a show.
They were sold to a showman, who later sold them to a circus owner.
They worked as sleighs and “freaks” to be put on display until their sleigh status
was evicted.
Soon, they were united with their mother Monemia and went on to give performances on stage
by the name of “Two headed Nightingale”.
The two had a terrible childhood as sleighs until a man named Joseph Pearson Smith educated
them, and the Emancipation Proclamation freed them of the label of sleighs.
They were taught to sing, dance and speak 5 languages.
Smith and his wife changed their lives.
The 2 went on to become very famous amongst the media and were dubbed as the “Carolina
Twins”, which later became their stage name.
Sometimes addressed to as “The Eighth wonder of the world” and sometimes as “freaks
of nature”, the girls were toughened enough to live the life they loved.
They had had their fair share of media coverage and were quite popular amongst the masses.
Number 3: The black and white twins Lucy and Maria Alymer are black and white
twins.
Lucy – white with ginger hair – is often confused to be Maria’s best friend, MARIA
–who has dark skin and thick hair.
But in reality, they’re twin sisters.
This is one of the best examples of biracial twins.
Their mother, Donna, is half Jamaican and their father, Vince, is white.
They have 5 children.
3 of them have a complexion in between Donna’s and Vince’s.
Lucy, however, has an English Rosy complexion just like her father, whereas Maria is a dark
beauty like her mother.
The two of them—with Lucy’s deep blue eyes and Maria’s dark brown ones—often
attract attention when announced as twins.
Born to a warehouse worker Donna and a scaffolder Vince, both of them have a very diverse personality,
just like their looks.
Lucy is an arts and design student whereas Maria chose law.
They have always been proud of each other and have supported each other throughout their
lives.
Number 2: Sanju Bhagat Once labeled as the “pregnant man,” Sanju
Bhagat had the feed us feed us situation.
It is one of the rarest in the world with only 90 cases having been reported so far.
A farmer from Nagpur, India, Bhagat had lived his life with a bulging tummy until a fateful
evening in 1999.
It was then, in the month of June—when the 36-year-old Sanju was breathless and had to
be rushed to the hospital—that the cause of his bulging belly was revealed.
When the doctors thought that what Sanju had was a tumor, they decided to operate.
However, instead of a tumor, they found the mutant elated, deformed body of a boy inside.
It was Sanju’s twin brother.
Doctors explained that this situation arises when one of the twins gets wrapped over the
other in the womb.
This way, the dominant twin keeps growing while the other one takes all his nutrition
from the dominant one.
In most cases, they cry due to the lack of space and nutrition.
However, Sanju’s brother lived in his stomach for more than 3 and a half decades.
The doctors were shocked to see the well developed limbs and overgrown fingernails of Sanju’s
twin.
Number 1: Deepak Kumar Paswaan Parasitic twins are born when an egg splits
into the mother in an incomplete way.
Usually, the twins cry due to malnutrition because of having to share a single placenta.
However, in some unusual cases, they survive.
Deepak Kumar Paswaan is one such case of a successful parasitic twin.
It is an extremely rare medical condition.
Deepak Kumar Paswaan, born in the northern state of Bihar, India, had a parasitic twin
within his chest.
He was born with four arms and four legs; two of each belonging to his parasitic twin
who was trapped in his chest.
In the beginning, he was worshipped by the villagers as an avatar of Lord Vishnu, who
is always portrayed as having multiple arms.
Apart from the worshippers, there were also those who mocked him.
Nicknamed “Octo-boy,” Deepak Paswaan was simultaneously thought to be an incarnation
of the devil.
It wasn’t until he was 7 years old that his parents publicly appealed for help.
A hospital in Bangalore, India decided to help them.
Deepak underwent a successful surgery, whereby his parasitic twin was removed, and he finally
became a normal boy!
Doctors say he is 100% fit to carry on with his life.
The team of 15 doctors responsible for extracting his half-formed sibling and ensuring his body
parts worked properly wished him luck on his future endeavors.
Today, he goes to school and does all the things a normal boy his age would.