HARLEYVILLE — Lightning may not strike twice in the same place, but what about giving birth to identical sets of twins TWICE?

According to pregnancyandbaby.com, the odds of two sets of identical twins are more than 1 in 11 million.

Without using fertility drugs prior to either pregnancy, Donald and Elizabeth Baucom of Harleyville beat those odds to become parents of two sets of identical twins.

“Twins did run in the family. My grandmother was a twin,” Elizabeth Baucom says. “My first cousin had twins. Donald’s grandmother, who was a twin, had twins.”

At the first doctor’s visit during Baucom’s first pregnancy, an ultrasound was performed. The couple knew there was that chance, but reality hit when the doctor proclaimed that Elizabeth was expecting twins.

“Oh, boy!” she thought. Then she called her husband.

His reaction was different. He turned “white as a sheet,” almost fainted and was sent home from work.

Julie and Katie Baucom, now 7 years old, arrived three months ahead of schedule. In her sixth month of pregnancy, Elizabeth was placed on four weeks of bedrest. During that time and after the girls were born, a “wonderful lady,” Carolyn Rhames of Harleyville, cooked, cleaned and cared for Mrs. Baucom and the babies.

“They came home with heart monitors, and we had to get up every two hours to feed them,” Mrs. Baucom said.

That was quite a challenge, but nothing compared to what was to come. Katie and Julie were nearly 3 years old when the Baucoms found out they were expecting again.

“Everyone had been picking on us that we would have a second set of twins,” Mrs. Baucom said.

“When they were showing us the ultrasound, I only saw one sac. I said, #Yeah, there’s just one,’ and the technician shook her head and said, ‘No,’” Baucom said. “She moved the screen closer to me and, sure enough, there was a second sac. I was pretty surprised.”

“He couldn’t talk for about two hours,” Mrs. Baucom said, laughing.

A later ultrasound revealed that a second set of girls, Hope and Grace, was on the way. They are now 3 years old.

“I have to say that I was a little upset there were no little boys in there,” Mr. Baucom said, “but there was no way I was going to take the chance and try again.”

At 16 weeks, Mrs. Baucom started dilating, so that there was a greater chance of prematurity. She was placed on bed rest for 19 weeks before the second set arrived five weeks early. Once again, Rhames came to the rescue. The Baucoms are also fortunate to have relatives, including her mother, nearby.

When the older girls had been born, a mother of tripletts was hospitalized at the same time with Mrs. Baucom in the neonatal intensive care unit of the Medical University of South Carolina Hospital. She named hers “Faith, Hope and Joy,” which inspired Mrs. Baucom in naming her next set Hope and Grace.

Twinspeak

As Hope and Grace, began to talk, they had developed “twinspeak,” a phenomenon the Baucom learned about from their pediatrician, Dr. Mary Kate Tillman of Summerville, from reading about it in Twins magazine and from reading about it on Internet bulletin boards for twin parents.

“This happens with twins sometimes — twinspeak,” Mrs. Baucom said. “It was worse this time last year. But they have their own little language. They would say ‘jibber-jibber-jibber,’ then ‘Mom, I’m hungry,’ then ‘jibber, jibber, jibber,’ and they were talking to one another.

“For a while, we couldn’t understand what they were saying, but it was apparent they could understand each other. They would be playing and jibber-jabbering back and forth. One would ask something of the other, and the other would get up and go get something, just like their twin had asked for it,” Mr. Baucom said.

“One word they would say was ‘ooophra,’” Mrs. Baucom added. “It seemed to sort of mean ‘What’s up?,’ and they had a couple of other words I would pick up on, and my big girls would pick up on them and use those words when talking to them.”

In addition to their twinspeak, the younger girls had multiple ear infections as toddlers, which further hampered normal speech development.

Now the 3-year-olds are enrolled at Williams Memorial Elementary in St. George, where they have been placed in a small special education class. Speech therapists work with them daily to help with their enunciation and speech development.

This, in combination with tubes in their ears, has helped immensely, Mrs. Baucom said, and the parents understand around 75 percent of what Hope and Grace are saying now. Next year, they will be placed in the regular 4-year-old kindergarten classes.

A ‘normal’ day

“We are never on time,” Mrs. Baucom says.

“We get up at 6:30 a.m. School is at 8 a.m. for the older girls. Then the younger girls and I head home. I take the younger girls to school at 12 and pick up them up at 2 p.m. Then I rush over to Dorchester Academy to get the older girls at 2:30 p.m.,” she said.

Every other Tuesdays are Girls Scouts. Wednesday they have piano practice in the evening.They have children’s choir every other Thursday, and on Fridays they have dance class.

Telling them apart

When the girls were babies, the Baucoms painted their toenails so they could tell them apart.

“It is harder to tell in pictures,” Mrs. Baucom said, “but when they are in front of you, their little personalities come out and we can tell.”

Katie offered one difference.

“I used to suck my thumb when we were babies, and Julie didn’t,” she said. “I wear glasses, and Julie doesn’t. I’m wearing blue, and Julie’s wearing pink.”

One thing they obviously all have in common is energy.

This year for the first time, the older set of girls have been placed in different classes.

“It has helped their social skills. They play with other kids better,” their father said. “When they were together, they would go everywhere together. When Hope and Grace came along, they had the older two to play with as well as each other. Julie and Katie just had each other, and they tended to stick together.”

Each younger twin has an older sister in particular who is like a “little Mom” to them — Grace’s is Julie, and Hope paired up with Katie.

“After school, they will run up to their older sibling and say, ‘Hi, best friend. Hold my hand’ and they come inside holding onto their special sister.

The Baucoms say there is not a dominant twin.

“Depending on what they are doing and what mood they’re in, one might take the lead, and then the next day it switches,” Mr. Baucom said.

Dressing the girls in matching outfits is a battle their mother says she doesn’t do anymore.

“As long as they are dressed when they get to school, I’m fine with that. If they get there in their princess dresses, that is just fine,” she said.

The Baucoms enjoy taking the girls out in public. They find that it is interesting to see people’s faces when they realize there are not one but two sets of twins.

“At first it is fun, but then we get stopped so often it takes us 10 hours to get out of Wal-Mart,” Mr. Baucom said, laughing.

The worst day

One day Mrs. Baucom was busy in the kitchen starting supper.

“I noticed it was quiet,” she said. “That should have been my first warning sign. Quiet isn’t good.”

She walked into the living room to find two toddlers drawing with the permanent markers on the new hardwood floor. She banished the offenders from the room and began trying to scrub the marker off the floor.

“Then I heard sneezing coming from the kitchen,” said Mrs. Baucom, who then turned her attention to the kitchen, the direction in which the toddlers had toddled off.

“There they were in the midst of the kitchen. They had gotten into my spice rack and dumped all my spices out. They were covered,” she said.

By that time, supper was about burned and so was Mom. But the fun and games weren’t quite over.

“I heard a big crash. They had gone in the bathroom to clean up and decided to do pull-ups on the towel rack. Now there was a big hole in the Sheetrock and torn wallpaper,” Mrs. Baucom said, rubbing her brow and shaking her head. “I called my mom and pleaded with her to come get them.”

Looking to the future

Although it can often be a challenge, the Baucoms’ philosophy about raising two sets of twins, along with their sense of humor, gets them through the difficult times.

“We just do the best we can planning financially, pray that they get good grades and, hopefully, they will get scholarships,” Baucom said.

“People give us a hard time about paying for four weddings. I tell them that they came two by two and I’m hoping to get rid of them two at a time.”

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