Three sisters from Weston have twins

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Julia McKenzie (from
left) holding Harper Steiner, three weeks, Courtney Steiner holding Henry Steiner, three weeks, Molleigh
Brown, 2, Mason Brown, 2, and Megan Brown. (Photo: J.D. Pooley/Sentinel-Tribune)

Pink or blue?
None of the three McKenzie sisters could decide, so they ordered one of each.
Now the Weston-based family is seeing double, three times over.
Put another way, Julia and Tim McKenzie have gone from having three grandkids at the start of 2012 to
having nine a little over two years later.
It all started with oldest sister Megan Brown, a 1995 Otsego High School graduate, who gave birth to
boy-and-girl twins Mason and Molleigh on Jan. 24, 2012.
Middle sister Andrea Gebhart, Otsego class of 1999, became pregnant even before Brown delivered and
amazingly, she followed suit, giving birth to boy-girl twins Reid and Reese on Sept. 5, 2012.
When youngest sister Courtney Steiner (Otsego 2001) announced her pregnancy several months ago, there was
almost immediate speculation.
"Everyone was teasing me: ‘Oh, you’re gonna have twins.’ So when I went for the ultrasound, the
technician was more surprised than I was," exclaiming "Oh my gosh, you’re having twins!"

"I almost expected it. I think I knew," Steiner says now. And sure enough, boy-girl twins Henry
and Harper were born a few weeks ago, on Feb. 25.
What are the odds?
No medical personnel have given them a firm answer, but a co-worker of Brown’s did some online research
and came up with the figure one out of a million.
"No fertility drugs, and all boy-girl sets, it’s got to be a pretty big number," Steiner
figures.
Steiner’s husband Dave is in the Army Reserve and was in Minnesota at the time of that first ultrasound,
so she shared the news on computer, via FaceTime. If Steiner wasn’t totally shocked by the news, he
certainly was. "When he saw the (image of the babies on screen) he said ‘Oh my gosh! OK, we can
handle this.’"
As it turned out, the pregnancy became high-risk, and instead of delivering at 38 weeks as planned, she
delivered by an emergency cesarean section at 36 weeks. But the babies were in good shape: Henry weighed
4 pounds, 7 ounces, and Harper weighed 5 pounds, 8 ounces.
"I was a little shocked" when she heard about her baby sister’s ultrasound, says Gebhart, while
admitting in the back of her mind she had been thinking "how cool would that be if both my sisters
would have twins, but I figured what are the odds?"

Middle sister Andrea
Gebhart of Newark cuddles her 18-month-old twins, Reid (left) and Reese. (Photo provided)

Her own set weren’t quite such a shock given that "our twins are the fourth-consecutive
generation" of twins born on her husband John’s side. So much for the old wives’ tale that twins
always skip a generation.
Brown was one of those who was telling Steiner to expect twins early on. "She was so tired,
nauseous, just like me. I was exhausted" while carrying Reid and Reese. "Beyond tired."

Brown, who worked three days at week at BG Manor during her pregnancy, delivered her own twins at 37
weeks at Wood County Hospital.
Knowing what their youngest sister was in for, Brown was eager to make things as easy for Steiner as
possible.
"Andrea and I saved all our clothes up to 12 months. We were sharing them all between us, and then
we boxed them all up for Courtney."
Based on her own experience, Brown has told Steiner to "hold on, it gets better.
"Once they’re 6 months old they can hold their own bottle; that was a help. Before that, you really
have to be hands on."
As a parent of twins, she discovered that the half-year mark means "you’ve made it. They’re sleeping
longer at night. You can lay ’em on the floor and they can keep themselves occupied."
Gebhart, looking ahead even further, finds her 18-month-olds "fun because they’ve got their own
personalities now and they’re starting to string a couple words together."
Steiner says she’s taking it "very one day at a time" with one-month-old twins. "I get
lots of help; family and friends bring me food, clean the house. As long as you have a good support
system" twins are not so stressful.
The McKenzie clan figures Easter will be the first time they can get all six of the babies and their
parents together. They usually attend services at the Weston Church of Christ, followed by Easter dinner
at the grandparents’.
The Gebharts will be driving up from Newark. Megan and Dave Brown live in Wayne, and the Steiners call
Waterville home.
"My poor parents," Gebhart mused. All holidays, and especially "Christmas and
birthdays," are suddenly much more complicated than they used to be, between logistics and
gift-giving.
But nobody’s complaining about the chaos.
The McKenzie baby rush may be over for good, given that the Gebharts also have daughters ages 5 and 3,
and the Browns have a 4-year-old son in addition to their twins.
And the Steiners insist they’re happy with the status quo.
"We wanted two. We talked about it when we first got married," Steiner says. "The way the
odds are for my family, we thought, ‘Should we risk it and have triplets the next time?’"
It’s not idle speculation. "My (paternal) grandmother had triplets – my two uncles and my aunt. I
think that’s how it all started."

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