Jerry Carino

@njhoopshaven

As fraternal twins, Danielle Grant and Kim Abraham were born one minute apart, wore matching clothes, attended the same schools and both settled in their hometown of Toms River.

Now there’s a new, incredible twist in their lifelong bond: the 32-year-olds gave birth to baby boys on the same day, one hospital room apart.

“Every single person has been like, ‘no way!’” Abraham said. “Even the nurses coming in for their shifts were like, ‘We’ve got to meet the twins.’”

It happened Friday at Ocean Medical Center in Brick. Both moms had to be induced after their matching due date, April 22, sailed by. Grant, who already has a two-year-old daughter, gave birth to 8-pound, 12-ounce Roman at 11:42 a.m. Abraham, a first-time mom, delivered 9-pound, 12-ounce Aaron at 3:21 p.m.

These Toms River miracle twins beat the odds

“People were equally amazed about twins having the same due date as they were that I actually birthed a 9-pound, 12-ounce baby,” Abraham joked.

Olga Malpica Proctor, associate mathematics professor at Brookdale Community College, calculated that the odds of twin sisters giving birth on the same day are about 8 in 100,000, which is roughly the same odds of someone getting struck by lighting once in their lifetime. The odds that both of those babies are the same gender is approximately 4 in 100,000.

"That is just so amazing," Proctor said.

Both sisters, whose maiden name is Manara, want to make one thing clear.

“Total coincidence,” Grant said. “We both wanted babies, but we didn’t think we would get pregnant the same time. This was not planned.”

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That said, they might be the only people who weren’t surprised.

“We laughed because we always thought it would happen, and then it actually did happen,” Grant said. “It’s really cool.”

They realized they were having boys several months ago during a “reveal” party, a popular event which reveals a child’s gender in creative ways. They each shot off a cannon stuffed, unbeknownst to them, with blue confetti (watch the video at APP.com).

“We just kept one-upping the coincidences.” Abraham said. “It’s the best thing in the world. We’re real close and our husbands are real close. The boys will be like brothers.”

The only thing they kind of orchestrated was the induction date. Doctors typically give overdue mothers a small range of options. Of course at that point they picked the same date. Grant went into labor first.

“My mom was in the delivery rooms for both of us, going back and forth,” Abraham said. “She was sending updates through text messages. I was getting bad contractions and nobody was coming to my room because every person was in my sister’s room. I was texting my mom, ‘Help over here!’”

Abraham was jokingly asked by a reporter why they didn’t time the delivery to the minute.

“Listen, if I could have gone four hours earlier, I definitely would have done that,” she quipped.

Both moms and babies came home Sunday. There’s already talk of joint birthday parties, naturally.

“We’ll dress them in the same outfit,” Grant said. “We were dressed alike but in different colors growing up, so we’re going to torture them like that, too.”

Staff writer Jerry Carino: jcarino@gannettnj.com.