Life took an unexpected turn for siblings Sarah and Will Sargent two years ago. Although they had always been close, their parents sat the 18-year-old and her 20-year-old brother down to reveal the news that left them both in disbelief. It turns out that, despite their age difference, Sarah and Will were actually twins conceived on the same day through IVF using embryos from the same batch. Their parents made the decision to implant Sarah eighteen months after Will was born “on ice” or freeze her embryo until it was time for implantation..
On TikTok, their twin tale was revealed, and it went viral almost immediately. She’s from Hobart, Tasmania, which is close to Australia. After releasing her TikTok video, it amassed millions of views as people throughout the world were shocked by the tragic story of how these twins were born two years apart.
“My parents had children using IVF. Mum produced lots of eggs with each IVF cycle,” said Sarah. “The clinic attempted to fertilize all the eggs and had a reasonably high success rate. The embryos are examined, and the strongest two are used first.”
She added, “One of these embryos went full term, and that’s when my brother was born. The other embryos are frozen so that they are available for implantation in the future. I was one of these embryos, and I was defrosted and implanted around 12 months after my twin brother Will was born, in January 2001.”
“I was born in October 2002, 21 months later,” she said on TikTok. “We are twins because we were formed in the same womb, but they took me out and put me in an IVF freezer as an embryo for two years. Had our embryos fertilized naturally, my brother and I would have been non-identical twins born at the same time.”
When Sarah and Will’s parents revealed to them that they were actually twins, both children were utterly shocked. Sarah, in particular, had a hard time believing it because she always thought of her older brother as her only sibling.
“While I knew my parents had IVF to conceive, I had no idea that we were biologically twins. I found this out when I was 16. My dad was driving me to school, and I was saying that I was convinced I was adopted because I thought that I looked and acted differently than everyone else in my family, especially my brother. He then said, ‘well, I know for a fact you aren’t adopted because Will is your twin brother.’”
She added, “Naturally, I presumed he was joking and said that it would be impossible because I’m two years younger. That’s when he explained the full story to me. I was pretty confused about us being twins. When my dad explained that I was in the freezer for two years, I honestly couldn’t believe it.”
“That was the craziest part of the whole story for me.”
She concludes: “The reason they didn’t tell us sooner is because they wanted to wait until we were old enough to understand.”
What are your thoughts on these siblings being two years apart?
