A California woman was shocked to learn that one of the twin boys she delivered as a surrogate mother was actually biologically her own.
Jessica Allen, 31, gave birth to twin boys in December 2016, when she acted as a gestational surrogate for a Chinese couple. She said she did not get a chance to see the babies in person after their birth, but a little over a month later, the mother sent her a photo.
That鈥檚 when she noticed that the boys did not look like identical at all.
"I did notice that one was much lighter than the other," Allen told ABC News. "You know, obviously, they were not identical twins."
DNA tests confirmed that while one of the children belonged to the couple, the other was biologically Allen鈥檚.
"We were floored," Allen said. "We were like, how did this happen?"
Doctors explained that Allen must have become pregnant with the couple鈥檚 child but then ovulated again and conceived another baby with her husband, Wardell Jasper.
Doctors say double pregnancies, which are called 鈥渟uperfetation,鈥� is extremely rare, since most women stop producing eggs during pregnancy. Superfetation does not usually increase the risks of the pregnancy, but it does result in two babies with different gestational ages.
Allen and her husband, who live in Perris, Calif, near San Bernardino, now have custody of their 10-month-old son, who they鈥檝e named Malachi. But they say it took months of wrangling with the surrogacy agency.
Allen told the New York Post she had to hire an attorney to fight with the surrogacy agency, which she says demanded compensation for handing over the child. The agency, Omega Family Global,
Allen says it鈥檚 been quite an adjustment bringing Malachi home since they weren鈥檛 expecting to add to their family, which already includes two older boys.
"You got to think like, 'Wow, we didn't know you were coming,'" she added. "We didn't plan this."
Allen has also decided that after this ordeal, she will not be a surrogate again.
