Sister act! Prince Albert is joined by sibling Stéphanie for Monaco charity auction... but heavily pregnant Charlene stays at home With Princess Charlene days away from giving birth, Monacos Prince Albert was forced to draft in sister Stéphanie as his date last night. The Monégasque royal was at the Fight AIDS Monaco Auction Sale at the Hotel Meridien and looked in good spirits, cheerfully giving his sibling a smacking kiss on the cheek as she arrived to join him. For her part, Stéphanie, 49, was chic in a tailored cream boucle jacket and neatly tailored trousers, and accessorised the look with a bright slick of red lipstick. She also joined auctioneers on the stage to help sell off some of the art, which was donated by painters such as Kenzo Takada, will all profits going to help AIDS victims. Fight AIDS Monaco is a personal project of Princess Stéphanies and was launched to help people with HIV and AIDS live normal lives, free from discrimination and stigma. Stéphanie is the youngest child of the late Prince Ranier and his wife Grace Kelly and has enjoyed a colourful career, that has included stints as a model, fashion designer and singer. Her love life has been equally colourful, with a first marriage to her bodyguard Daniel Ducruet, followed by a relationship with an elephant trainer. After that relationship ended in 2001, she married Portuguese acrobat Adans Lopez Peres but the marriage ended in divorce less than a year later. While Prince Albert is no stranger to a complex love life, his romantic life has been transformed since meeting then Olympic swimmer Charlene Wittstock in 2000. Now Princess Charlene, the sports star moved into the Palais Princier in 2006 and the couple married in 2011. Although heavily pregnant Charlene, 36, usually accompanies Albert to events in Monaco, she remained at home last night. Due to give birth to twin heirs within days, she last appeared in public with the Monégasque royal family on Monaco Day last month. Speaking in a rare interview days after the balcony appearance, Albert told local paper Monaco Matin that the birth is imminent. As it is a twin pregnancy the birth will surely take place a dozen days early, he told the French language title. Princess Charlene, 36, who has chosen to find out the babies genders, is, he revealed, under strict instructions not to tell him. The princess probably knows but she is playing the game, said the expectant father. She is keeping the secret as I asked her to. You know, one doesnt often have the opportunity to have such pleasant surprises in life. That is why I prefer not to know the babies gender before the birth. ROYAL TWINS: HOW A DOUBLE BIRTH AFFECTS THE SUCCESSION With an average of 3.5 sets of twins born per 1,000 pregnancies, an instant family of two babies - even royal ones - isnt unusual. Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia is one royal parent of twins, who with wife Princess Sophie of Isenberg welcomed Carl Friedrich and Louis Ferdinand in 2013. Another is Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark and his wife Mary, who became parents to Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine in 2011. Prince Louis Alphonse, Duke of Anjou is yet another royal father of twins, following the birth of Prince Louis, Duke of Burgundy and Prince Alphonse, Duke of Berry, to his wife María Margarita Vargas Santaella in 2010. But although royal twins are fairly frequent among European dynasties, among them the Monégasque couple, British royals are an entirely different story with just one set born in the last 2,000 years. Born to King James I of Scotland and his wife Joan Beaufort in 1430, Alexander and James were the first and only twins born to British royal parents. Tragically though, Alexander, the eldest of the two, died before reaching one - with his younger brother later taking the throne of Scotland as James II. During his marriage to Mary of Guelders, James sired no fewer than seven children, all of them in separate pregnancies. Despite the lack of British royal twins, odds have shortened on another double birth - for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge - taking place. While the Monégasque rules of succession are clear, the British rules arent set in stone, although as the new baby - or babies - will be spares, the question of who inherits what is less vexed. In theory, with Prince George already in the royal nursery, the new babies would come behind him with the elder becoming the spare while the younger would have no real role. As for which parent is responsible for the Monégasque royal twins - or the British ones, should they come to pass, Consultant Gynaecologist Dr Andrew Paterson says both could be behind a multiple birth, although the mother is the more likely candidate. ‘Twins are not genetically based, he explains. Monozygotic twins are more rare and when a single fertilised egg divides in two, creating identical twins. ‘Another way is when a mother release two eggs at ovulation and both are fertilised, creating non identical twins. ‘If either the mother or the father have twins in their family, the chances of them having twins is higher.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 01:49:17 +0000
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