Miracle babies: Tampa couple's identical twins had 50-50 chance of survival

TAMPA, Fla. (FOX 13) - Life looks pretty idyllic for Lex and Patrick Murphy, as they celebrate the birth of their two beautiful newborn twin boys.

But in reality, the last six months have been anything but easy. Lex gave birth to identical twins, Max and Miles, last month, at 32 weeks. Her rare pregnancy, called Monoamniotic Monochoriotic, or MOMO for short, had disheartening odds.

Adding to the stress and uncertainty of her pregnancy, Lex was in the process of studying to take the Florida Bar exam, which she completed and was sworn in from her hospital bed.

MOMO pregnancies only stand a 50-50 chance of surviving to 25 weeks. Murphy was monitored every six hours for weeks. Two hours on monitors, and two hours off, with a six-hour break at night to sleep. She was on bed rest for months at the hospital.

"By the time I was sworn in, I had been here for a month already," she said. "But it was really exciting, it really lifted my spirits."

She explained, twins usually have their own sac and placenta in their mother's womb. But her twins only had one to share.

"They can feel each other and touch, they can also become entangled," Murphy said. "They can squeeze each other's cords. It can become very dangerous very, very quickly. Which is why we were here at TGH.”

Her husband, Patrick, also a lawyer, knew how hard she'd studied to prepare for the bar - and how excited she was to be a mother.

"I think the morning of the exam she was borderline throwing up, and not going to go, and I said, 'Just go, you'll do well,'" he recalled. "And when she passed she was on another level, so it was good to see her hard work pay off."

Now comes a different kind of hard work.

"We just enjoy every day that they're here, it's a real miracle, it really is," she said.