Pregnant sisters' 'bumping bellies' video go viral
Two sisters from Ontario recently went viral after finding out they were pregnant at the same time and documenting their dual journeys to parenthood on TikTok.
Samantha Schleese, 33, and Danielle Schleese, 32, have always been close -- they even moved in together in June 2021 with their partners -- but their bond only grew stronger when they discovered they were pregnant at the same time.
"We decided to make the move because we knew having children we wanted to raise them close rather than living separately," Danielle Schleese told "Good Morning America." "So we all decided we wanted to live together."
The sisters, now new mothers, decided to showcase their unique bond and parallel pregnancies on TikTok, where they gained hundreds of thousands of followers.
"My TikTok started really moving forward once I started posting about where we live, what we're doing and living with family because I think everybody can relate in their own way," Danielle Schleese said.
"We wanted to track our progress anyway," Samantha Schleese added. "So why not just do it together?"
The sisters' videos routinely garner hundreds of thousands of views. But one video in particular, in which they bump their growing bellies together for every month of their pregnancy -- ending with them gently "bumping" their two newborns together as well -- amassed 18.4 million views.
"I still cant believe this happened," they captioned the video.
While getting pregnant at the same time wasn't planned, it wasn't entirely a coincidence either, both sisters said.
Back when Samantha Schleese was first actively trying to start a family, Danielle Schleese said she had joked that her older sister was "waiting for me" to have children as well. "Subconsciously you know that we're going to get pregnant together," she recalled saying.
"Then, sure enough, it just happened that way, and we couldn't be happier that it did," she said.
Two days after Danielle Schleese found out she was expecting in July 2021, she bought a pregnancy test for her sister.
As it turned out, her sister was also pregnant.
"It's like a dream come true, really." Danielle Schleese said. "Who doesn't want to be pregnant [at the same time as] your best friend or your sister?"
Their mother, Sabine Schleese, 67, said the two had been manifesting the parallel pregnancies for decades.
"Even as children, you were talking about it, that you want to have your babies together," she said.
"It was a beautiful coincidence and I guess fate in a way," Samantha Schleese added.
The sisters ultimately gave birth 13 days apart in April -- a boy named Wilder for Danielle Schleese and a girl named Willow for Samantha Schleese. While being first-time moms isn't easy, the Schleese sisters are grateful they have each other for support.
"We literally check in on each other every morning still, and will be like, 'How was your night? How's it going?'... It's a constant conversation that we're having that we're really lucky that we get to have," Samantha Schleese said.
"It takes a village," Danielle Schleese said. "And luckily we have one."
As for Wilder and Willow, the sisters say they want to give their newborns siblings someday, and hope to be pregnant again at the same time.
"You can only control it so much because it's such a blessing to be able to do that and or even get pregnant in the first place," Danielle Schleese said. "But ... I mean, that's the plan."
