OT: Another Patriots WR about to become a daddy

[PittPatriot]

As a mother of two sets of fraternal twins born through IVF (and proud of it), I must take issue with the overall premise that having fraternal twins naturally is that rare. It isn't. Not sure where you got your numbers, but the liklihood of having fraternal twins is actually a fairly common gene (releasing two eggs at once) that is passed down through female members of a family, although it can skip a generation. That's why you often hear people ask, "do twins run in your family?" when they learn someone is expecting twins. Identical twins are random, not "caused" by fertility treatments, and only occur about 1/3 of the time in twinning.

Chris Hogan and his wife are young. I would not assume (and did not even think it despite my own experience) that their twins are the result of IVF treatment. In fact, I would say that if conception occurred during the football season that it probably wasn't IVF, as that process (unfortunately) takes over your life when you have to go through it.

In any event, however they got here, twins are an incredible blessing and I congratulate Chris and his wife!!

@PatsDeb-
I spoke off the cuff about IVF (they could have taken clomid or similar med and had multiple follicles).
I agree IVF can be time consuming, but freezing sperm can alleviate any inconvenience
for the male partner. Having said that, I don't disagree with your assertion that twins may run in families...but there is no hyperovulation/multiple ovulation gene.

The data I pulled was from my recollection, but was able to find it on the Australian Twin Registry.

Frequency of twin births
Birth rates for MZ twins are consistent among all races (about 4 per 1000); but the incidence of DZ twinning varies among races (8 per 1000, among Caucasians, 16 per 1000 among people of African descent, and 4 per 1000 among Asians). A genetic predisposition or inherited characteristic for DZ twinning exists in some families, but the consistency of MZ twinning among all populations suggests that identical twinning is a random occurrence that is not influenced by genes. Overall, about 1 in 80 births in Australia is a twin and of these about 30% are MZ.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how they got pregnant - it is great they were able to.
Congrats on your perfect family...between the 4 kids, do you have more girls or boys?