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Science, you have some explaining to do.
By Cassandra Rose — Written on Sep 19, 2020
From time to time, science likes to mess with us.
Case in point? In 2015, a single mom of twin daughters from New Jersey experienced the shock of her life when she decided to take her children's father to court for child support payments because she was feeling outdaughtered.
Confident that the DNA would put the trial in her favor, imagine her surprise when it actually ended up working against her.
Normally, this kind of case is a no-brainer. As the father, he's responsible for his children, end of discussion. Right?
Wrong. It was actually revealed that the man in question only fathered one of the twins. Um, excuse me? We know that this sounds like it's coming from an episode of The Twilight Zone, but it's one hundred percent true.
The scientific name for this is heteropaternal superfecundation.
Apparently, the mom's eggs were fertilized within a week of each other, which means that both men she had sex with fathered one twin each. That explains why he was just one of their paternal fathers.
Having twins by different fathers is a very rare occurrence. It's reported that 1 in every 13,000 twin paternity cases have different fathers.
Superior Court Judge Sohail Mohammed ruled that, "This is a case of first impression in New Jersey and only a handful of reported cases exist nationwide."
As strange as this seems, this isn't the first time this has happened, although it is pretty rare. However, it was a first for New Jersey. NJ.com mentioned that this is "the first paternity case in New Jersey and only the third nationwide to feature two different fathers for a set of twins."
Science, you have a lot of explaining to do.
Dr. Keith Eddleman, director of obstetrics at Mount Sinai Hospital New York, said that an egg has a life span of 12 to 48 hours, and sperm is viable for 7-10 days, so there is potential overlap in fertilization from two different acts of intercourse. So, this woman's ovary produced two eggs that month and they were fertilized by two different men within a few days of each other.
A lot of common occurrences of twins with different fathers usually appears more pronounced with fathers of different races, because that becomes apparent at birth.
In the paternal court case, the father she listed for both twins was only clarified to be the paternal father of one of the twins. He was only ordered to give $28 per week in child support for the one child he is paternally connected to.
Now, the twins are 7 years old and are living life happily. And it will surely be an interesting conversation to have when they're old enough.
Cassandra Rose is a writer with a focus on entertainment and trending topics.
Editor's Note: This article was originally posted on May 2015 and was updated with the latest information.