When she was 19, Alison Campbell learned that she had been born with a very rare condition: she had two uteruses, one each attached to its own Fallopian tube. This extremely rare condition does allow women with double uteruses to have children, in fact, Alison had two of her own before she and her husband discovered they were pregnant again.

At 11 weeks, Alison went in for an ultrasound to check up on what she had recently confirmed was a viable pregnancy. But she and her husband would come out of that doctors office in the most intense state of shock.

For years, Alison always joked with her doctor about he possibility of having a baby develop in each uterus.

“We used to joke, ‘Oh, there was a woman on Grey’s Anatomy who had a baby develop in both uteruses, maybe that will happen to me!’ We just thought it was hilarious.”

But when it came time for the ultrasound, this joke turned out to be less comical than Alison had imagined.

At first, all they saw was the baby in the right uterus, and everything seemed perfectly fine there. But when the doctor scanned around, they all quickly saw something incredible: another developing fetus was growing in her left uterus, as well.

The couple, understandably, panicked. After some swearing and hot flashes, the doctor managed to calm them down; they were having two more babies, but they were both healthy, and that was the most important thing.

After some research, Alison found there were only 73 documented cases in the world of two babies being born from two uteruses…in one woman. The couples’ doctor, who monitor this high-risk pregnancy, said that in over 40 years of practicing medicine, she had never seen anything like this.

This same doctor would deliver the two little boys 14 weeks prematurely, each weighing only a pound and a half to start. The babies were so fragile that Alison couldn’t even touch them.

A few weeks later, the first of the twins, Carter, went home at a healthy 7 lbs. He still required a heart monitor, even at home. His brother Griffin still struggled with health issues, his heart rate often plummeting dangerously low, but he was allowed to go home with his family some weeks later.

Now, despite all odds, the blissful Campbell family has two new additions to their family.

“It just seems unbelievable to me that we’ve been this fortunate,” Alison’s husband told CNN. “We’re going to walk away, for all intents and purposes, with two healthy boys, even though the odds were stacked against them.”

Their parents call them “their tiny little fighters,” and intend on using this rocky start to their lives as a lesson; if they could make it through everything they did, they could make it through just about anything. We’re sure this is a lesson that will help them grow into strong, willful adults.

What do you think of this incredibly rare childbirth and this touching story? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.