A woman who is one of the rarest types of twins in the world says she is grateful to be alive after doctors gave her and her sister a one per cent chance of survival.
Hope and her sister, Faith Baxter, both 24, are “Momo twins” — short for monochorionic monoamniotic, meaning identical twins who shared a placenta and amniotic sac.
Doctors told their parents that if they went to full term there was a chance one of the twins would not survive, so they decided to induce them two months early.
The twins spent six weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and were given a 1% chance of survival.
Hope said it was a “miracle” that both of them are alive and thank their parents every day for their decision to have them induced.
“I didn’t realize the severity and extent of the amount of fear my parents were put through,” Hope, a dental student, from Lima, Ohio, said.
“I am so grateful to them to be here — every day is a gift for us,” said Hope. “I am so proud of how far we have got. Even to have both of us here, alive and well, is a miracle.”
Her mother was five months pregnant when doctors told her she was expecting Momo twins.
Momo twins, also written as Mo/Mo twins, have a higher risk of complications during the pregnancy — including infant death and childhood disability — which fueled their parents’ decision to induce them two months early.
“When they found out we were Momo twins, they were told there could be further complications down the line which is why we were born two months premature,” Hope said.
“It was my dad’s call, the doctors didn’t want us out so early as we were fully developed. They told my dad that if we went full term there was a chance that one of us might not make it.
“My dad said he wanted both twins to survive and told the doctors he wanted us to be induced two months early.”
The twins were born on August 25, 2000, and spent six weeks in the NICU. Faith was born with a collapsed lung and Hope was born with heart problems. They were both closely monitored.
It was in the NICU that their parents named them Hope and Faith.
“It was definitely a scary time for my parents, everything leading up to the birth was scary for them,” she said.
“We were named Hope and Faith as our parents weren’t sure if we would make it. Doctors gave us a 1% chance of survival as they didn’t think either one of us would survive.”
Despite being identical twins, Hope said their parents wouldn’t get them mixed up as she was born with heterochromia, the presence of different colored eyes in the same person.
“Lucky for them, they never got us mixed up growing up. The way they would tell Faith and I apart is I have two different colored eyes,” Hope said.
“I don’t think they struggled with us growing up, they had a system where when one of us would be at pre-school and the other one would be at home with our parents. They didn’t want us to completely rely on each other.”
Hope said despite being best friends with her sister, it could be challenging growing up together as they would spend all day at school together and go home together.
Now, the sisters live in completely different states as Faith is training to be a doctor at VCOM-Carolinas, Spartanburg, South Carolina.
“I would say we are best friends, we have always motivated each other,” Hope said. “But there were definitely some struggles, being an identical twin. Especially in high school, it felt like a competition with sports, grades and who had more friends.”
“Because we’re so busy now, we don’t really realize how we’re not together. We are constantly talking to each other over text or FaceTime,” Hope said. “We are always talking together so we forget how we haven’t seen each other in ages as we always know what we get up to.”
