A married couple from Mississippi discovered that they were biological siblings, soon after they got the results from a routine DNA test. The couple met in college, and they were trying to have kids.
The couple celebrated together their birthdays for years, thinking it was an agreeable coincidence but they were far to know that they were actually biological twins. Apparently, the couple was adopted by different people, and that is why they never knew about one another.
“My first reaction was that they must have been less- closely related; perhaps they were first cousins, which happens sometimes. However, looking closer at samples, I noticed there were way too many similarities,” said the doctor from the fertility clinic in Jackson where the couple got the DNA results.
The couple’s results were far too similar
The married couple met in college. They fell in love, and they decided to get married. They were trying to conceive, but they had trouble doing so. Therefore, they resolved to go to a fertility clinic in Jackson to receive some help.
In the fertility clinic, they went through routine DNA tests. Clinics don’t tend to verify if there is a link between the profiles of the parents, but the lab assistant who was handling the case noticed that the results of the couples were really similar. The doctor, shocked by the results, consulted the patients’ files. He said that sometimes couples turn out to be cousins or somehow related. Nonetheless, when he noticed that both of them had the same birth date, in 1984, he thought that they had to be twins. The thing is that he was pretty sure they didn’t know about that, so he brought up the issue in the next appointment with the couple and, according to the doctor, they laugh at the idea.
The husband did confess to the doctor that a lot of people had told them that they looked kind of similar to each other. However, they always thought that having the same birthday was just a funny coincidence for them and that they were definitely not related.
The doctor said that the wife kept asking him to admit he was joking when he was explaining to them the DNA test results. The doctor, though he wished he was kidding, he wasn’t. He kept on talking to them to know how the whole thing had happened.
Apparently, they both were put up for adoption when they were just infants after their parents died in a car crash. No family was willing to adopt them both, so they were put in the care of the state, and different households later adopted them. The problem was that these families were never told that their kid had a twin.
“The fact they’d both been adopted after their parents had died, meant they’d both experienced a similar childhood, and they felt they could really connect with each other,” the doctor said.
The story was published by the Mississippi Herald, which decided not to make public the name of the doctor, the clinic, or the married couple.
The couple is thinking about their future together
This news was traumatic for them. Apparently, they were really happy together and seemed to get along from the very beginning. However, after this turn of events, the couple is thinking twice about their future together. They will desist from the idea of having a child. Certainly, the idea of having gotten married to their own sibling was something that never crossed their minds.
“I really hope they can work something out. For me, it’s a particularly unusual case because my job is all about helping couples conceive a child. This is the first time in my career that I’ve been glad I haven’t succeeded in that regard,” the doctor said.
Genetic sexual attraction
A similar case occurred in 2008 in the U.K. Due to that shocking discovery, the couple got their marriage annulled. U.K. politician Lord Alton said that adopted children should receive information about their biological parents to avoid situations like these.
Pam Hodgkins from non-profit group Adults Affected by Adoption, said that people have a resistance to feel attraction for someone they know is related to them. However, when people don’t know about that link, they are naturally attracted to others who appear to be similar to them.
Chris Atkins, who is part of the Adults Affected by Adoption too, thinks that -even if it’s an odd thing to occur- twins being attracted to each other is not so shocking. That is what he refers to as “genetic sexual attraction” because all people tend to prefer other people who have similar preferences or looks. Therefore, when siblings, who are not aware of their biological link, get together, they naturally think that the other is their ideal match.
Source: Inquisitr