Identical twin sisters Jill Justiniani and Erin Cheplak of Yorba Linda, California have always done everything together.
Born just one minute apart, Jill and Erin both grew up to become pediatric occupational therapists, got married, and even got pregnant just a week apart. Throughout their pregnancies, they had a running joke about how funny it would be if their babies, both male, were born the same day.
“Sharing our pregnancy together was really special because we really had the support of each other through every step of the process,” Jill said. “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.”
It seemed unlikely that the boys would be born on the same date. Jill was scheduled to have a C-section on May 5th, and Erin was due to be induced 10 days later, on the 15th.
But fate had other plans! On the morning of the 5th, Jill went to the hospital for her surgery. That morning, Erin started feeling labor pains. She and her husband went to Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Anaheim and were put in a room just a few doors down from Jill’s room.
That evening, Jill welcomed Oliver at 6:39 p.m. Five hours later, Erin delivered Silas at 11:31 p.m. Incredibly, both babies weighed the exact same amount, right down to the ounces: 7 pounds, 3 ounces, and 20 inches long.
“Part of me was thinking, ‘What are the odds of this? I can’t believe this is happening,'” said Jill. “But there was also a sense of calm about it because it was like of course this is happening. We’ve just been so close and so inseparable, it made complete sense in a very odd way.”
Two days after they gave birth, the sisters were able to leave the hospital together with their husbands and new babies.
“Our husbands were able to wheel us out at the same time,” Jill recalled. “All the nurses were saying, ‘Usually it’s one mom with two twin babies, and now it’s twin moms with a baby each.'”
“I think God had the perfect plan of Jill and I being identical twins and really leaning on each other,” Erin said.
The sisters live just five minutes apart, and they work together too! They plan to raise their sons more like brothers than cousins.
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