Twins share more than just similar faces
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February 10, 2009 • Kirsten Morrell
Filed under Features
Office manager Laurie Shannon always wanted to be a twin. She always wanted someone to play with when she was little. She wanted someone to laugh with when she got older and someone to share her life with in that strange, unbreakable twin bond.
It’s always been said to be careful what you wish for. Shannon wanted to be a twin. Instead, she ended up married to a twin and eventually gave birth to a set of fraternal twins, a boy and a girl.
“Having twins made parenthood easier and harder,” said Shannon. “It was easier because they were never alone and they kept each other entertained. The harder part was having double the diapers and food and double the work. But it also made parenthood great.”
Eighteen sets of twins attend our school. Eleven are fraternal twins, four sets of mirror twins, and two sets of regular identical twins.
Identical or monozygotic twins are formed from one fertilized egg (one ovum and one sperm) which splits after conception into two identical halves which develop separately.
Each identical child (always the same sex) will have the same chromosomes and many of the same physical attributes. Identical twins will also share the same blood type, eye and hair color.
According to research completed by the National Organization of the Mothers of Twins Clubs (NOMTC), slightly more than half of all twins born are male and approximately one in four pairs of identical twins are mirror-image twins. About one third of all twin births are identical.
Freshman Megan and Sara Fristoe are identical twins.
“Megan and I talk in sync a lot,” said Sara Fristoe. “We also share our friends.”
“Exactly the same friends,” said Megan Fristoe, laughing.
The two provide proof that twins can communicate without using words, facial expressions, or body language doesn’t exist.
Although it would seem impossible, most twins have a very strong intuition into the other’s mind suggests NOMTC.
Fraternal or dizygotic twins are formed from two fertilized eggs (two ovums and two sperms) and can result in two siblings of the same or opposite sexes.
“Tadd and I are fraternal twins,” said senior Morgan Phillips. “We share a car and both do Cross Country, but he’s a lot smarter. Tadd’s first in our class and I’m eighth. I’m also more outgoing.”
The likelihood of having fraternal twins is dependent upon the woman carrying a fraternal twin gene and can also be affected by heredity, race, marital age and number of children previously borne.
One-third of all twin births result in same sex fraternal twins and one-third are different sex fraternal twins.
“My sister Ashley and I are fraternal mirror twins,” said sophomore Stuart Poindexter. “We mirror each other in every way. She’s a blonde. I’m a brunette. I have a birthmark and she doesn’t. I write with my right hand, she writes with her left. And of course, I’m a guy and she’s a girl.”
“It’s weird having someone the exact opposite from you,” said Ashley Poindexter. “Seeing Stuart is like looking through the other side of a mirror. I see me and then there’s him. It’s weird.”
And despite there being just the two types of twins, there is a growing scientific belief of a possible third type of twinning, polar-body twinning. This type (although not fully accepted as an “official” type of twins by scientists yet) theorizes that twins aren’t exactly identical and aren’t exactly fraternal, but half identical/half fraternal.
Polar-body twinning, according to NOMTC, can happen when the oocyte (primary egg cell) divides twice on its way to maturity, yielding egg cells and polar bodies at different stages along the way. Usually these smaller polar bodies don’t play a meaningful role in reproduction. But now scientists believe that some twins could be the result of two of these egg cells and larger polar bodies being pregnated by two sperm. The twins would most likely share all of their mother’s genes but only half of their father’s genes.
“Dating Cody’s friends are off limits,” said senior fraternal mirror twin Savannah Knighten. “That’s one of our rules.”
“But it’s okay to cover for each other whenever there is a problem,” said brother Cody Knighten. “I keep an eye on Savannah so I know what she’s doing most of the time. I’m really pretty protective.”
Freshmen Tommy and Tara Skarbek, born May 10, 1993 are also fraternal mirror twins.
“She’ll probably kill me for saying this,” said Tommy Skarbek. “but my favorite thing about Tara is her smile.”
“Tommy is a very unique brother,” said Tara Skarbek. “We’re mirror twins so our tastes are really different. I listen to only alternative music and he goes from Sinatra to Black Eyed Peas. Its interesting.”
Rates of twins vary by society but according to the latest CDC National Vital Statistics Report (2002), the approximate twin birth rate (number of twin births to total live births) in the U.S. is about 31.1 per 1,000 live births.
Even though twins and other multiples are more common today than they once were, you’re still pretty unique if you are born as a twin–only about one out of every 32.1 live babies born is a twin. These odds used to be much higher, when the twin authors of this essay were born in 1964, there were 41,259 sets of twins born in the United States, with 10.4 per 1,000 births meaning about one of every 96 babies in 1964 was a twin.
“It’s nice to have someone around the house, who’s the same age that I can do things with,” said freshman Nick St. Clair who has a fraternal twin named Ryan.
“My brother Ryan and I don’t really ever get along. When we do though, it’s nice.”
“One of the reason’s we don’t get along is we make fun of each other and sometimes we take it too seriously,” said Ryan St. Clair. “It usually results in a fight.”
In a London Medical Association study completed in 2003, a set of twins were separated. One twin was put in a soundproof room with a box and bucket full of ice water. The other twin was out of sight and earshot. The second twin was hooked up to a machine and his respiration, muscle movements, pulse rate, and galvanic skin response (sweating hands) were monitored. Every time the first twin did something the other twin had the same unconscious reactions.
“There have been moments when Douglas and I have finished each other’s sentences,” said senior Garret Smith, who is an identical twin. “Sometimes we’ll be sitting silently or watching TV or something and we’ll say the same thing. And sometimes we tell the same jokes. But, we usually don’t talk in sync.”
The book Twin Connections: Stories That Celebrate the Mysterious Bond of Twins, twins, and friends and family of twins, tell the spooky and magical stories of twins thinking alike and feeling alike.
“Connor lives with our dad on the coast now,” said freshman fraternal twin Colleen McCowan. “We’re really close so it’s really hard to be away from him. I miss him a lot.”
In one story a twin feels her sisters pain, as her sister gets ready to give birth. In another, one twin could sense the moment when his brother died.
“I can sense when Hannah is sad,” said freshman Sophie Cashman. “We’re mirror twins so its not as strong, but I can still feel it.”
“Sophie and I talk in sync a lot,” said Hannah Cashman. “We do that more than finishing sentences.”
“My twin brother and I always hated dressing the same back in high school,” said Mark Stamper, the data and curriculum secretary. “Everyone said we looked ‘so cute’, but really it was just embarrassing.”
Twins are miraculous. Every day twins are born. Every day they breathe and laugh. Most every day, they look at or think about their twin and think, “hey, that looks like me,” and naturally, this causes both to smile.
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