By 1news.co.nz
All their lives, identical twins Gillianne Gogas and Nicole Patrikakos have done countless things in sync – even giving birth to healthy baby boys.
The 36-year-old sisters – who also shared the same due date – gave birth just hours apart at the Epworth Freemasons private hospital in Melbourne.
Gogas told 9News she and her sister felt a mix of emotions over their duplicate deliveries.
“The timing, you just can’t plan something like that. So yeah, disbelief, shock, excitement, all of those emotions,” she said.
Gogas’ son Alexander arrived on August 22 at 1.20pm local time, while Patrikakos’ son William was born just five hours later.
“[We were] very close growing up. We have always done everything together so this is just another example of that,” Gogas said.
“We have always sort of done things in sync,” Patrikakos added.
But the sameness does not stop there – both newborns shared a healthy birth weight of 3.5kg.
They were even delivered by the same obstetrician, Dr Joseph Sgroi, who said the sequential births were a first for him and Epworth Freemasons.
“It is not something that is common. It is not commonplace for even sisters to give birth on the same time or on the same day,” he told 9News.
Sgroi noted that, at a genetic level, babies Alexander and William were more like brothers than cousins.
“You have got two identical twin girls having their babies at the same time … we know that they share 100% of their DNA so these two boys, whilst they may be cousins, they are actually more akin to brothers in terms of their gene pool.”
The twins seemingly only differ on their parenting paths, Alexander being Gogas’ third child while William is Patrikakos’ first.
The pair agreed an “extra big celebration” would be needed every year.
“Hopefully they will be as close as we are because it really is a special bond that we have,” Patrikakos said.
