Woman carries twins for her twin sister who's unable to fall pregnant
Jill Noe is 29 weeks pregnant with twins for her twin sister, Whitney Bliesner!
By Frances Sheen
April 08 2019
When a rare genetic condition meant it was too dangerous for Whitney Bliesner to fall pregnant, she thought she would never be able to have kids.
She knew she wouldn't be able to adopt and she couldn't afford surrogacy.
But everything changed when her twin sister, Jill Noe, stepped in and even though she had never been pregnant before, she offered to have her sister's baby.
Jill is now 29 weeks pregnant with Whitney's twins.
Whitney has Neurofibromatosis type 2, a rare hereditary disease that makes a person susceptible to benign tumors that form along the nerves of the brain, spinal cord and other areas of the body.
The illness has meant she has lost her sight in her left eye, her hearing in her right ear and has partial hearing loss in her left ear.
She has also had a partial hysterectomy and knew that if she even did get pregnant, there was a chance of passing on the disorder to her child.
"I got married to a wonderful man almost three years ago," she reveals to Today. "And once I got married the feeling of wanting a family came back strong; so I decided to look at all my options and figure out how I could go about it."
But it is all thanks to her twin sister that her dreams have come true.
Jill immediately stepped up to be the surrogate, even though she hasn't had children herself yet.
"She’s always wanted to be a mom and her disease has already taken so much from her," said Jill. "I wasn’t going to allow (NF2) to take this opportunity from her, too. She’s my best friend and I know she would have done the same for me. I really didn’t put much thought into becoming a surrogate at all. It just felt like the right thing to do. Our family is so strong and so supportive of one another, especially since Whit’s diagnosis in 8th grade."
After one failed round of IVF, the pregnancy was a success and she is now carrying twins.
"I am excited about having twins because I am a twin and I know what kind of bond my sister and I have so I wanted my kids to have that and go through life with a best friend they came into the world with just like me and Jill," she said.
The twins will arrive on June 6 via C-section and their names have already been picked out for their boy and girl - Rhett and Rhenley.
And as Jill doesn't have kids of her own just yet, Jill says she wants to freeze her eggs and have kids very soon. "My ultimate goal is to have kids in two to three years so that my children can grow up with Whit's," she said.
