Rare Twins, Who Held Hands After Delivery, Set to Go Home in Time for Father's Day
June 1, 2014 — -- A rare set of "mono mono" twins that drew headlines after they held hands in the delivery room, are finally preparing to go home just in time for Father's Day.
Sarah Thistlethwaite gave birth to a pair of monoamnioitc twins earlier this month at the Akron General Hospital in Akron, Ohio. The twins, who developed in the same amniotic sac, held hands as soon as doctors held them up to show Thistlethwaite in the delivery room.
It was a sight that made everyone in the operating room a little teary, Thistlethwaite said.
"I was just amazed, because they're mono mono twins they're touching all the time. I didn't think they would come out and instantly holding hands," Thistlethwaite told ABC News in an earlier interview.
"It was as if they were saying, 'We've got this,'" Thistlethwaite said in a post on the hospital website. "'We're going to be okay. We've got each other.'"
After the picture of the twins holding hands in the delivery room was published by the local media, the story quickly went viral across the globe. Both Sarah Thistlethwaite and her husband Bill have been inundated with media requests and interviews in the weeks since their identical twin daughters, Jenna and Jillian, were born.
"It's still been crazy," Bill Thistlethwaite told The Associated Press. "Everywhere we go, someone saw it (the photo). People are still talking about it."
The twins were born prematurely at 33 weeks during a planned cesarean section. According to experts, most monoamniotic twins are delivered between 32 and 34 weeks, because if they get too large it can become easy for them to get tangled in each other's umbilical cords leading to oxygen deprivation.
Due to the twin's premature delivery -- just two days before Mother's Day -- doctors have kept them at the hospital for weeks.
"I already feel like they're going to be best friends," Bill Thistlethwaite told the AP of the famous photo of his daughters. "They'll probably look at it and say 'That makes sense, because that's how we are.' "
One week after the Thistlethwaite twins were born another pair of rare "mono mono" twins were born at the same hospital, but this time the newborns were too busy crying to hold hands. Those twins are still recovering at Akron Children's Hosptial.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
