When KisLevonia Givens found out she was pregnant with twins, she was ecstatic. To ensure that everything was going to plan, the Louisiana mom attended her prenatal checkups like clockwork.
But at her nine-week visit, the ultrasound showed that one fetus was growing faster than the other. “I went back around 13 weeks and the second fetus didn’t have a heartbeat,” Givens told Fox 8 News.
Still grieving for a baby she would never hold, she continued to make sure the other would survive.
She was told by doctors at Oschner LSU Health that she would either pass the other fetus at birth or she would absorb it. Ultrasounds later confirmed it had been absorbed," the TV news channel reported.
“It was gone,” said Givens. “It had vanished.”
“Vanishing twin syndrome is where someone starts off with a twin pregnancy, or even a larger multiple pregnancy, and it reduced down to a single pregnancy,” said Dr. R. Edward Betcher, the OBGYN overseeing Givens's pregnancy.
The syndrome is so rare that Betcher noted only three to four occurrences happen every year.
On the day of little Payelon's birth, nurses noticed an unusual birthmark resembling a fetus on his left knee. "Maybe he absorbed it," noted the nurse.
“That caught my attention,” said Givens.
When she posted photos announcing Payelon's birth to social media, it went viral.
“I got tons of inboxes from other people that had went through the same thing,” she added. The mom said she now feels as though she’s still holding both twins when she’s holding Payelon, because “he’s like two babies in one anyway.”