Twiblings: How one couple welcomed two babies four months apart after a long IVF journey
After 20 failed IVF attempts and the heartbreak of losing a child, Rohan and Kate Silva’s journey to parenthood took an extraordinary turn with the birth of ‘twiblings’.
After years of heartbreak and failed fertility treatments, Rohan and Kate Silva’s dreams of expanding their family finally came true — not once, but twice — in just four months.
The couple, who had endured 20 gruelling IVF procedures, experienced a breakthrough in Oct 2023 when Kate became pregnant.
But their family’s remarkable journey didn’t end there. Just weeks after learning about her pregnancy, they also proceeded with a surrogacy arrangement in the United States — leading to the rare phenomenon known as twiblings: siblings born within weeks or months of each other.
Their path to parenthood had been fraught with difficulty, including the devastating loss of their newborn daughter, Zola, in 2022 due to prematurity. What could have been four children remained at three, with eldest son Jozef, six, now joined by two more siblings born within the same year.
Despite initially feeling hesitant about her pregnancy news, Kate and Rohan decided to move forward with their plans for surrogacy. The result was two children born four months apart — a phenomenon famously experienced by celebrity couple Chrissy Teigen and John Legend.
For the Silvas, their twiblings were born just 17 weeks apart. Their story resonated widely, with many parents sharing similar experiences.
Their surrogate, Ava, a 34-year-old married mother of three from Mississippi, carried their embryo, transferred at a clinic in Los Angeles. She gave birth to the Silvas’ baby on November 19, while Kate delivered their other child on July 24.
The family travelled to Mississippi to be present for the birth, standing by Ava and her husband, Joe, in the delivery room.
“After our baby was born, Ava was crying with joy, Kate was crying with joy. We have pictures of them holding hands through the whole procedure,” Rohan shared in an interview with The Times, as reported by People.
Kate, who was already breastfeeding her newborn, was able to nurse the surrogate-born baby immediately. Interestingly, they’ve chosen not to disclose which child came from the surrogate.
“I’m keen to talk about surrogacy, but for our babies, I think it’s their right to talk when they’re old enough about how they were born and conceived,” Rohan explained.
The couple also addressed concerns they had faced from others. “Some people did say to us, can you trust a surrogate? But then you meet the people that step forward to do this for others and you realise it’s a kind of vocation for them,” he added.
Rohan, a former senior policy adviser to ex-UK prime minister David Cameron, also spoke out against the stigma surrounding surrogacy, calling for greater understanding of the diverse ways families are formed today.
“We should just be glad that there’s another loving family in the world,” he said. “Families can come together in different ways — blended families, mixed families — and surrogacy is just one of those ways.”
While twiblings is shorthand for twin siblings, it doesn’t necessarily describe biological twins. Sometimes called Californian twins, the term also reflects California’s prominence as a global hub for surrogacy services, backed by world-class clinics and progressive reproductive laws.
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