Texas: Baby retrieved from car after window smashed
A four-foot-four dwarf has an “identical” twin sister who is more than a foot taller than her, earning the pair a slot in the Guinness World Records book and an interview with Daily Express US.
When Texas mom Chrissy Bernal discovered she was pregnant, she had no idea she going to give birth to twins.
That’s because daughter Sienna was so small she didn’t even show up on CT scans.
Sienna was later born weighing just one pound. Meanwhile, sister Sierra weighed four pounds.
The pair are classed as “identical,” but two rare conditions make Sienna markedly different from her twin sister.
These identical Texas twins look nothing alike (Image: Chrisy Bernal)
This initially baffled doctors, who told Chrissy her newborn daughter Sienna had a 10 percent of making it out of the hospital alive 24 years ago.
Mom Chrissy told Daily Express US: “It was pretty scary, but I remember sitting in this bland room surrounded by doctors, at least five of them, and they told me that if she made it out of the hospital that she would not have a viable life at all, to not expect much of anything from her.
“I remember snapping back and telling them ‘you don’t know what God has in store’.
Sienna ended up going back to the hospital many times with pneumonia and other illnesses until she was around five years old.
At six years old, Sienna still weighed just 25 pounds and after seeing specialist after specialist, a geneticist finally told the family Sienna has Dandy Walker and Primordial Dwarfism, both of which are rare genetic mutations.
Sienna and Sierra are now 24 (Image: Chrissy Bernal)
Primordial Dwarfism is an incredibly rare form of dwarfism, with fewer than 200 cases in the world. Unlike typical dwarfism, it is “proportional”, meaning Sienna’s limbs look more like an average-height human, but a lot smaller.
“She looks like somebody took her sister and shrunk her a little bit”, Chrissy said.
Meanwhile, Sienna is also missing parts of her brain due to Dandy-Walker, which is relatively similar to Autism in terms of how those who have it behave socially.
These conditions made growing up in Houston, Texas, an uphill battle for Sienna.
Sienna told Daily Express US: “It was kind of mixed. But I definitely felt different in my teen years. It was difficult.
Sienna went to college but struggled to find a job, until she set up her own business (Image: Chrissy )
“When I am in a group with people my own age, 24, I don’t know what to do. I could be a room with people my own age and I don’t pick up on the social cues.”
Her mother said: “Sienna struggles with finding friends and that has been challenging as she watches her sister go out with hers and watch her do things everyday people do. But when Sienna meets someone new they don’t know how to interact with her because she is like them but not, and a lot of the time they end up ignoring her.”
Sienna tried to go to college but said it was “too overwhelming”. It was initially hard for Sienna to get a job, and weighing just fifty pounds, this has its physical limitations for a number of professions
Her mom said: “We weren’t very comfortable with her doing something like being a hostess at a restaurant or something like that. We are in Houston, which is a really large hub for sex trafficking. That is something we had to consider when looking at employment for her.
“And with her looking like an eight to 10-year-old, that is something that is always on our minds given the sicko pedophiles out there who are looking to sex traffic children.”
Sienna finds it hard to make friend (Image: Chirssy Bernal )
But when she started a successful jewelry business, that is when she found her calling. Last year she sold several hundred pieces.
Sierra wanted to stress how impressive this was for someone with her condition.
She said: “Growing up, the doctors told us that she wouldn’t even be able to button her own shirts. The fact that she now can and even does beadwork is so amazing. Everyone loves her jewelry, all my friends buy it. It’s so great and she puts so much work into it.”
While Sierra now lives in Nashville, Tennessee, she remains “very close” to her sister and flies back all the time. She massively helped her identical twin growing up, including fending off the bullies.
Sierra told Daily Express US: “I had to help her understand sarcasm as I and a lot of our family are very sarcastic, and Sienna didn’t get it for a very long time. I taught her how to swim, how to ride a bike.“
The twins are proud of their Guinness Book Record accolade.
Sienna said: “It’s pretty cool. It gives people a reason to talk to you.”
