After seven years of trying to have a baby, and suffering a series of miscarriages, doctors told Kelly Jinks to give up.
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When her younger sister Shantel Mulcahy started thinking about starting a family, she was told she would face the same hardships.
Thankfully, neither listened.
On August 10 their determination paid off.
At 4.53pm Kelly went into labour with miracle baby Anna.
Shantel visited mum and bub that night. When she got to the maternity ward her waters broke.
If it wasn’t for the fact Shantel required a caesarian, the cousins would have been born on the same day.
Shantel welcomed little Charlotte Sammons at 10.51am on August 11.
How the sisters managed to bring two healthy baby girls into the world is a story hard to believe. “Last year I got told about this Chinese acupuncturist in Adelaide who was renowned for enabling people to have babies,” Kelly explained.
Kelly was ready to try anything and took Shantel along to give the alternative therapy a go.
“It was weird, really bizarre,” she said of the experience.
“He was this little old man and you don’t tell him what’s wrong with you, he just knows.
“He just told me he was going to start treatment and I didn’t know what he was going to do, but I didn’t care.
“He put needles in your knees, hands and feet, and I also took a herb capsule.
“It took about half an hour and then he just said, ‘go make babies’.”
The sisters had the treatments in September last year and found out they were pregnant in November.
“When we went in for our ultrasound we were both given the same due date which was August 9,” Kelly said.
“Even with our symptoms we were always about a day apart.”
Holding the girls in their arms was a proud moment for both women.
“I don’t think I really believed we were going to get Anna until they put her on my chest,” Anna said.
“In seven years I had a lot of losses. I was happy to be pregnant again but I was scared.
“I couldn’t believe a couple of pins in my feet could help.
“All my doctors had told me to give up, that I would never have a baby.
“But he said ‘go have babies’, and we did.”
The unconventional lead-up to the conception has certainly stumped Kelly and Shantel’s family and friends, none more so than their nana.
“Our nana in Melbourne thought we had gone to the Chinese doctor and he had impregnated us and the babies were going to be Chinese,” both women laughed.
“After seven months she was asking us how Asian they would look when they were born.”