Brittany Daniels had a baby using a donor egg from her twin sister Cynthia.
Brittany Daniel had a baby using her an egg from twin sister Cynthia
The 45-year-old actress - who rose to fame alongside her twin on their hit 1990s show 'Sweet Valley High' - was left unable to conceive naturally after a 2011 battle with cancer but she and husband Adam Touni welcomed daughter Hope into the world in October 2021 via a surrogate thanks to help from her sibling.
Brittany said: "We are so intertwined. Everything that's hers is mine and everything that's mine is hers. I always thought I'd be the first to get married and start a family. But I was serious about my career, and I was having a good time.
"[After recovering from cancer] I remember thinking that I had a new lease on life. I was ready to find a partner and have a child. Words cannot explain how grateful I am to [Cynthia]."
Explaining her decision to donate her eggs, Cynthia - who has Ryland, 17, Colt, 13, and Steely, eight, with husband Cole Hauser - told PEOPLE magazine: "I saw it as such a simple gift I could give to her. I know Brittany would do it in a split second for me. And we've always shared everything, so why not this?"
However, when three IVF attempts proved to be unsuccessful, Brittany and her husband turned to a surrogate, once again using Cynthia's egg.
Brittany explained: "I thought I might have to wrap my head around not being a mom in this lifetime. I fought so hard to get there, and I was so scared it wasn't going to happen. I I fought so hard to get there, and I was so scared it wasn't going to happen. [When Hope was born] I just let out this primal cry. The entire room was bawling because they just all knew what we had been through."
Cynthia finally met her niece in December after a period of self-isolation and - despite initial trepidation - insisted that she just "feels like [Hope's] aunt."
She said: "I wasn't sure how I was going to feel at first, what emotions would come up. But I just felt like the aunt. And that is really special."