A pair of identical twins gave birth to their sons hours apart in the same hospital, and the boys had identical measurements.
Identical twins Jill Justiniani and Erin Cheplak, 30, both of whom live in Yorba Linda, California, grew up with an extremely close bond, Good Morning America (GMA) noted.
“We played together, slept together, ate together,” Jill told People. “My parents would talk about how we had our own language together. We’d be in our cribs side to side and make these cooing sounds. I’d make a sound and Erin would respond.”
Erin and her husband Zach – who is a fraternal twin himself – married one another during a small wedding at the height of the pandemic in 2020, according to GMA. This past August, they had a more extensive ceremony, and on the morning of the big day, Jill called her twin with the news that she and her husband, Ian, were expecting a baby.
“I screamed and woke up my husband,” Erin told the outlet. “It was such an exciting time.”
While on her honeymoon with Zach in the Maldives the following week, Erin took a pregnancy test revealing she too was with child.
Jill told GMA:
Sharing our pregnancy together was really special because we really had the support of each other through every step of the process. Even just going through the day-to-day changes of pregnancy, all of the unknowns and the questions and the natural worries that come up, we were constantly able to check in with each other and support each other.
Jill was set for a scheduled C-section on May 5, while Erin, whose pregnancy was a week behind her sister’s, was on track to be induced ten days later on May 15, GMA noted. However, on the morning of May 5, Erin’s water broke.
“I called my husband and was like, ‘I’m not joking. I think my water just broke,'” Erin told GMA. “I called labor and delivery … and then my next phone call was to Jill and I said, ‘Okay, this isn’t a joke. I’m pretty sure my water just broke.’”
Jill was originally scheduled for a 1:30 p.m. C-section, which was pushed back due to a few emergency C-sections, People noted. Erin, on the other hand, arrived at 9:30 a.m. and subsequently went into active labor. Jill and Ian spent hours with Erin and Zach in their room.
“It was the four of us and all being a support system together,” Erin told People. “They were there for my strong contractions. I could not have gotten through that without that support.”
At 6:39 p.m. Erin and Zach’s baby boy Oliver arrived, followed by Jill and Ian’s son baby Silas at 11:31 p.m., People noted.
The boys both measured twenty inches and weighed seven pounds, three ounces, KTLA reported.
“‘I said, ‘You got to be kidding me,’ ” Zach told People. “It was just incredible.”
Three days later, the twins celebrated their first Mother’ Day.