Ashley Ness is a 35-year-old mother from Massachusetts. She works as a hairdresser and is raising her 8-year-old daughter and her husband’s two sons. The family lives in a spacious house in Taunton. Ashley also has an adult 24-year-old child. She and her husband tried to have children together, but the woman had four miscarriages, so she gave up all hope.
Her life changed when she went to the doctor for a prescription for birth control. The gynecologist said that Ashley was pregnant. Two weeks later, the woman went for an ultrasound and for a long time could not understand if everything was all right with the baby, because the doctor behaved very strangely. This case was one in ten million.
This phenomenon occurs when two eggs are fertilized at the same time, and then each fertilized egg divides again. Because each separated egg remains enclosed in its own placenta—unlike traditional ones, where each of the four is housed separately—the result is two pairs of identical twins.
Genetically, Ashley had every chance of giving birth to twins. Her mother had twin brothers, her grandfather had a twin, her aunt had twins. Her mother-in-law is also a twin, and her husband’s sister had twins. With such statistics, it is not surprising that Ashley was among the rare cases.
Four babies at once is also a big expense. The average cost of raising one child is $17,000 per year. And for four, more than 68 thousand dollars are needed. Moreover, these costs do not include specialized treatment for premature babies, which were the twins. In addition, Ashley could not return to work after giving birth, and even had three adult children to look after.
