Twins sisters share all, even daughters’ birthdays

WASHINGTON - Twin sisters who grew up sharing everything have celebrated another milestone together - each gave birth to their first child on the same day in the US, a media report said Friday.

The two Kendall natives, Alexandra Lima Pennington and Cristina Lima Rodriguez, were born four minutes apart, met their future husbands two weeks apart, got married six months apart, and on Tuesday each gave birth to their first child — both girls, Miami Herald reported on its website.

Olivia Simone Pennington, eight pounds, five ounces, came first, at 5.15 p.m. and Ava Elise Rodriguez, nine pounds, eight ounces came along at 11.15 p.m.

“We grew up sharing everything,” Alexandra said as she cradled Olivia. “To some people this might seem out of the ordinary, but to us it seems normal.”

Despite being close as can be, the 30-year-old twins say the timing of their pregnancy was completely unplanned.

Alexandra was living with her husband Marcus Pennington in Las Vegas when she found out she was pregnant.

A week earlier, Cristina had dropped the news that she and husband Josh Rodriguez were expecting.

Soon after, the Penningtons decided to relocate back to South Florida.

“I couldn’t imagine not sharing this experience with my sister,” Alexandra said, as both moms cradled their daughters on Cristina’s hospital bed.

“We were both text-messaging each other, sending iPhone videos, having our husbands running back and forth to give each other updates,” Cristina said of delivery day.

Randy Fink, a Kendall-based obstetrician, who shuffled between the two labor sessions at Baptist Hospital, said it’s not unusual that the sisters were able to get pregnant around the same time.

“Twins share a similar medical history, and can share the same ovulation cycle,” Fink said. “What makes this extraordinary is that they were on opposite sides of the country and still somehow shared the same cycle. It’s certainly a great example of the power of sisterhood.”

The twins have always been inseparable. They attended Westminster Christian School in Palmetto Bay, where they occasionally tried to confuse classmates and teachers by switching roles.

While in the fifth grade, Cristina attempted to take a religion test for Alex, but a teacher quickly sniffed out the swap when Cristina’s nose started bleeding.

“They knew I was the nose bleeder,” Cristina said.

Together they attended Florida State University, both graduating with degrees in international relations, and both work for the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, though in different divisions.

The two twins with green eyes and black hair look so much alike that they were given rooms in separate wings of the hospital’s maternity ward, to avoid any confusion among the nurses and doctors.

The Lima sisters, who live about six blocks away from one another, are already mapping out a future of shared memories for first cousins Ava and Olivia.

“They’re not twins, but they kind of are,” Alexandra said. “We’re already planning their first birthday together. Disney trips, their baptisms.

“It’s like `Part Two’ of us.”