“He’s Like Two Babies In One”
(KTAL/NBC News) Underneath little Payelon Givens’ onesie lies quite a story. It’s there he carries with him a reminder of his twin sister.
“I found out I was pregnant around five weeks and I started my prenatal care around seven weeks,” says Payelon’s mother KisLevonia Givens. “When I went in for that visit, I saw two fetuses. And both had heartbeats.”
At the nine-week mark of her pregnancy, Givens learned one fetus was growing larger than the other. It became a possibility one of the twins might not make it.
“I went back around 13 weeks and the second fetus didn’t have a heartbeat,” Givens says.
She grieved but knew she still had to do everything in her power to ensure the surviving twin would remain healthy. She was told by doctors she would pass the other fetus at birth or she would absorb it. Ultrasounds later confirmed it was absorbed.
“It was gone,” says Givens. “It had vanished.”
Doctors call the phenomenon Vanishing Twin Syndrome.
Fast-forward to delivery day.
“When we were in the recovery room, Payelon’s nurse came in and we were looking over him,” Givens recalls. “We saw his birthmark.”
The resemblance of the last ultrasound taken of Payelon’s twin and the birthmark he carries on his left knee is eye-opening.
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