Twins always dispute each other about being a few minutes older, but for identical twin brothers Link and Logan, this isn't going to be a problem when they are older.
Last Sept. 29, Link was born 23 weeks premature, but his brother, whose prognosis remains healthy, will not be out of the womb until January, according to Komo News.
According to People, the babies started to exhibit twin to twin transfusion syndrome inside their mom Holli Gorveat's womb. One twin was essentially drawing blood from the other and both became quite sick. "So you have a situation where one baby becomes anemic and weak from blood loss and the other baby becomes overstuffed with blood, bloated and goes into heart failure," said Dr. Martin Walker of the Evergreen Health Medical Center in Washington, according to Komo News. The doctor did the surgery to deliver one of the twins.
The surgery was necessary as there's a 90-percent chance the syndrome would become fatal, according to ABC. Thus, Link was born weeks in advance at 1 lb., 2 oz. and remains fragile inside an incubator, according to reports.
While operating on the mother, the doctor realized that it was possible to close the cervix so that the second baby can remain in the womb. As it stands, Logan is doing better and may be delivered without complications full term, or by January 2016.
"Logan's good, so he's growing a lot and he's just kicking. He's got fluid, he can move around. He was stuck before," said their mom in the ABC report.
The doctor noted that the younger twin will be bigger than his brother later on in life. "Growth in utero is so much better than growth in the [neonatal intensive care unit]," said Walker.
Meanwhile, Gorveat may remain at the hospital so that medical experts can keep watch over her and her babies until the right time. The twins' parents have yet to hug their eldest boy, according to 10 TV, but it will hopefully become better by the time the other baby arrives
"I get emotional when I see him sometimes," said Gorveat. "Holding his hand, there's some times when it gets pretty tough in there. But you want to watch him and even sitting in the room with him is awesome."
According to the Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome Foundation, the rare condition can happen with 3.4 percent of pregnancies based on a 2005 statistics.
