Blessings—in the form of adorable twin boys—keep falling in Alexzandria Wolliston’s lap: The 25-year-old mom gave birth to two sets of twin boys in less than a year!
Last year Alexzandria gave birth to Mark and Malakhi, her first set of twin boys, on March 13. Two months later, on Mother’s Day, she learned she was pregnant again—with twins again!—and welcomed Kaylen and Kaleb on December 27. (The boys joined their big sister 2-year-old Ar’Mani, who will turn 3 January 30.)
Alexzandria says both sets were conceived without reproductive assistance, a common cause for births of multiples. (Fun bit of trivia: Black women are more likely to have twins than other races.) Naturally occuring twins happen in 1 in 250 births. According to her doctor, the West Palm Beach, Florida-based mom was more likely to win the lottery than to have two sets of twins in such a short time frame.
“She was like, ‘You wish you woulda played the lottery, right?’” Alexzandria told NBC Nightly News.
When Alexzandria learned she was having her first set of twins, she also unearthed her family’s history of twins; they appeared on both sides of her family. But after giving birth to Kaylen and Kaleb, she discovered a family tragedy: Her maternal and paternal grandmothers had twin boys who had died at birth, the Associated Press reported.
“That made me believe that these were meant for me,” Alexzandria told NBC of her two sets of boys. “They sent them down from heaven to me.”
“I feel like my grandmothers gave me their kids,” she said in a separate interview.
Kaylen and Kaleb were actually expected to arrive in 2020. In a YouTube video detailing her delivery, Alexzandria explains that her due date was February 5 and her doctor wanted to deliver the boys on January 24, when she would’ve been 38 weeks.
“Who you know have two sets of twins in the same year?” she asks the camera with a laugh. “I’ll wait. I’ll wait!”
One baby was born at 4 lbs and 5 oz at 1:12 p.m. and the other was born a minute later at 4 lbs and 2 oz. ABC News reports that Kayleb was able to leave the NICU on January 6. Alexzandria hopes Kaylen will be able to join the family in another week, he remains in the hospital, learning how to eat on his own.
“I’m just so amazed and grateful and thankful things turned out the way they did,” Alexzandria told ABC.
