Woman gives birth to twins with different sets of parents in unique case

In November 2025, a woman in Queensland, Australia, gave birth to twin children via caesarean section.

But in a ‘unique’ case for state surrogacy laws, the children have separate sets of biological parents.

The baby boy and girl have been raised separately over the last nine or so months without any dispute from the parents about their parentage.

However, it’s far more complex in court due to the Australian state’s surrogacy laws. In Queensland, they preclude the separation of ‘birth siblings’ in the event of multiple births.

Judge Jodie Wooldridge took on the case at the Children’s Court of Queensland and found that while the babies were ‘gestational twins’ they were not ‘birth siblings’ for the purpose of surrogacy laws. And therefore the court made an order formalising the parentage of the biological parents.

The woman was pregnant with twins that were not biologically related. (Getty Stock Image)

This all came about after the surrogate, anonymised as DZ in the court judgement, came into an ‘altruistic’ surrogacy arrangement.

Couple BNJ and DRJ hadn’t been able to conceive because of a medical condition and so entered the agreement in September 2024.

In April 2025, an embryo was inserted via IVF.

But roughly two weeks later, an ultrasound showed she was carrying twins. And genetic testing found that the girl was the biological child of BNJ and DRJ while the other child, a boy, was DZ and husband FZ’s biological child.

The court judgement says he was ‘conceived separately to the … embryo implantation process, and without medical assistance’.

It adds that while the couple hadn’t intended to conceive, it’s ‘not to suggest the child is anything other than loved and wanted’.

Surrogacy and family lawyer Stephen Page said to the ABC: “The fact that the children were conceived separately means that they were not born as a result of the same pregnancy, and therefore they were not birth siblings, as defined in section 24 of the Surrogacy Act.”

Both sets of parents sort the parentage order. (Getty Stock Image)

Ahead of the court proceedings, an independent counsellor was hired with the families telling them they intended the children: “Will grow up knowing one another and be raised with an age-appropriate understanding of their place within the wider family network.”

And the counsellor concluded: “On the balance of probabilities and assuming that both infants are raised in stable and nurturing family systems, the available research does not support the conclusion that separation of the twins from birth is, in itself, likely to cause psychological harm.”

Judge Woodridge ruled that ‘in the unique circumstances presented by this case’ that the two children were not birth siblings.

And so, the Queensland Surrogacy Act didn’t prevent her from making a parentage order sought by both sets of parents in relation to the girl.

Page added: “Judge Wooldridge KC was clearly correct in coming to that conclusion, both in law and in commonsense.”