U.K. Mom Maria Jones-Elliot, just set a new Guinness World Record after giving birth to her twin girls an incredible 87 days apart. Yes, DAYS. I didn’t even know that was possible!
Apparently, Jones-Elliot’s pregnancy was completely normal until she went into sudden labor about four months before her due date. Doctors told her there was little chance of the babies surviving because they were so premature. Thankfully, her first child, Amy, was born safely, although she weighed only a little over one pound and had to be rushed to intensive care.
But as Jones-Elliot prepared to give birth to Amy’s younger sister, something unbelievable happened: her contractions just stopped!
An attempt to induce her the following day failed and eventually, the mom-to-be decided to wait until it was safer. Katie didn’t arrive until after a full three months later, 36 weeks and three days into the pregnancy.
“Amy was fighting for life in an incubator and Katie was struggling to survive in my womb,” she told the Mirror. “It was the hardest three months of our lives.” Now, their story will go down in history, both with the doctors–who are calling both births a miracle–and with the world, as the Guinness World Record for the “longest interval between the birth of twins” (the previous record was 84 days).
What an absolutely incredible story! Pregnancy is scary as it is, because parents are just praying that everything goes as smoothly as possible. So can you even imagine what Jones-Elliot and her husband must have been going through having had TWO such completely unpredictable births? I have to agree with the doctors–it really is a miracle that mom and both babies are doing well.
Still, if there’s one thing that they learned from their crazy ordeal, it was probably to enjoy every minute they have with their babies … and I’m sure that’s exactly what they’re doing now!
