Has anyone else had a disappearing / vanishing twin pregnancy? (TW)

[TattiePants]

DD is now 11 but I found out at her 12 week scan that she'd been a twin and her twin had stopped growing around 10-11 weeks. During the scan it was very obvious that there was something else there and I actually thought the twin was a large tumour (the sonographer was really shit and basically ran out of the room and left us not having a clue what was going on).

I'm not sure what you're asking, sorry.

I'm 26 weeks pregnant currently. It started as a twin pregnancy. I had an early scan at 7 weeks which confirmed twins but one was much smaller than the other. They both had heartbeats but at a scan two weeks later, thry found the smaller twin's heart had stopped and it had stopped growing at about 8 weeks. That second twin, as I understand it, has since been reabsorbed.

Yes, my DS had a vanishing twin, my first pregnancy after clomid. It was a slower heartbeat on the 8w scan and on the 10w one it was not beating any more. It likely got absorbed into the placenta as it grew.

It's apparently quite common but that it's only because of much early scanning technological advances that we now see them more. A generation ago the technology would be doubtful to pick up a heartbeat that early in pregnancy.

Having said that, it was massively upsetting at the time - we'd been infertile, finally in shock that a pregnancy finally happened, stunned when we saw it was twins, started to come around to the idea of having two and loving it, only to lose that future so quickly and it be replaced by a fear something else would go wrong with the remaining twin until the point where viability became much more certain.

11 years on it still makes me sad, it was the first of several subsquent losses afterwards and I'll always remember them, but the first one you are new to the feelings surrounding MC so maybe they hit harder the first time.

I had a twin pregnancy with DD after IVF. We found 2 heartbeats at the 7 week scan but DD was clear and robust and there was another heartbeat from a much smaller less developed embryo. The smaller embryo didn't proceed and had disappeared by 12 weeks.

@Squiff70 I'm not sure what I'm asking really, it's just weird that it's supposed to be so common yet I've never met another person who has experienced it.

@TheOriginalClownfish yes earlier and more reliable scanning definitely makes it easier to detect.

I think in a way I was lucky that I didn't know that I was carrying twins before my 12 week scan. I had a bad fall at about 8 weeks pregnant when I fell through the loft hatch and knocked myself out. I went to A&E and I was desperate for them to scan me but they didn't. I'm glad I didn't have time to get used to the idea of twins then find out I'd miscarried one. Sorry for your losses.

Yes, I had one. Two healthy heartbeats at an 8w scan. Only one and what they called a 'fetal pole' at the 12w one.

Like pp I'd had time to adjust to the idea of twins. And start falling in love. The loss of one was completely unexpected and hard. I spent the rest of the pregnancy worrying massively about my remaining baby (who turned out fine). And struggled with grief as I felt guilty mourning the loss of one when I was still lucky enough to have one still growing.

I was also told afterwards it's common, but until then I'd never heard of it.

@PerrinAybara it's interesting what you say about feeling guilty when you still had one baby to look forward to. Looking back I behaved really strangely after my 12 week scan. I went straight back to work then spent the next few weeks focusing on how angry I was with the sonographer and how badly she'd handled it. Even when I did start to deal with the loss, I know I compared my loss to other people's and didn't feel like I had the right to grieve.

Is there a certain “type” of twin pregnancy that this is more common with?

It happened to me, found out at the 12 week scan that one twin had stopped growing around 7 weeks. I barely registered it at the time, it’s only years later when I had another three losses that this first loss hit home. My little girl used to have an “invisible” (imaginary) sister, and it broke my heart seeing her play/talk about her. I’m not sure I would have been able to cope but I always wonder what if.

Yes, this happened to me.

I do wonder if I should ever tell my son he had a twin. I don't think I will, I imagine he would find it upsetting.

Has anyone told their surviving twin?

@SurpriseSurprise I don't think so. It seems to be the same reason that most other miscarriages happen eg chromosomal abnormality.

@frangipani13 that's heart breaking hearing about your DS's imaginary sister. Your initial experience sounds similar to mine as I don't think I really registered it as a loss. I think it really hit me after DD was born thinking that there should have been two.

It happened to me, also following ivf. I found out at 15 weeks one twin had stopped growing around 12 weeks. It felt weird emotionally, like a funeral and birthday party at the same time. My consultant was great if very forthright and told me straight that twin pregnancies are high risk (which is why I was already with a high risk pregnancy consultant) and my surviving baby had a significantly increased chance of a healthy pregnancy and birth. It was harsh but surprisingly made me feel okay about the situation.

I often wonder about my daughters lost sibling, but after 10 years of fertility treatment I was more than happy to give birth to an amazing and healthy little girl.

@Needhelp101 yes I told DD a few years ago about her twin, she was probably 8 at the time. I have an older DS and for some reason we were talking about miscarriage and I told him. Once DS knew, I wanted DD to know too. She was actually fine about it and not upset at all. Over the years she's had a few more questions but not asked any for a long time now.

I've not told my DC yet (currently 9). I'm still undecided whether I should.

Glad yours took it ok @TattiePants. That's good to know.

DS (12) also had a vanishing twin. I started spotting at about 8 weeks so they scanned me and there was DS, plus an empty sac. I'd had no idea and actually twins would have been hard for DH and I to cope with, so it wasn't particularly upsetting for us (whilst acknowledging for others it might be heart breaking). DS knows he started off as a twin and he finds it interesting rather than upsetting. His younger sister likes to hypothesise over whether she'd have been born had DS's twin survived and tbf, she probably wouldn't as we only ever wanted two DC.

I had a vanishing twin. Saw both heartbeats at 6 weeks and at 8 weeks one had stopped and not grown. My DD is 6.5 months now. Apparently it's as common as 50% of pregnancies but as not everybody has an early scan it's not certain. I had velamentous cord insertion with my DD so I assume that's what happened with her twin and that's why the baby didn't make it.

Has anyone told their surviving twin?

No and I won't until he's well into adulthood to grasp that it wasn't anything that he did.

My DM had a traumatic birth with me. And regaled me about it from an early age. In her mind, her story was framed that she was being noble nearly dying bringing me into the world, but as a small kid, and right until I was pregnant myself, I always carried the guilt that somehow I nearly killed her. I think that in some ways, I still have residual issues from that.

DS asks about his birth since about the time he was 7 or so. I don't tell him I had an EMCS or why. He knows I had an C section but all he's heard was that I didn't feel a jot, that I couldn't wait to meet my baby and how wonderful the moment was. I'll not be telling him about the twin until I'm sure he fully understands that he couldn't possibly have squashed /hurt him because that's the way kids would tend to think.

this happened to me too - post-clomid, very early scan, second twin vanished by the first official scan. To be honest I very rarely think about it these days and can't imagine I would tell DS.

My son has ASD which complicates the matter of telling him. I think I'll do as @TheOriginalClownfish says and wait until adulthood.

💐 to you all.

Yes only discovered when my son had genetic testing and it was found that he had two sets of DNA.

I had a vanishing twin. She disappeared between 12 and 18 weeks. They were identical. The only sign afterwards was the placenta was quite damaged where the second baby had been attached. My DD knows about her identical twin. It seems strange that there were originally two of her.

Can’t imagine why you would tell children about this.

Maybe wait until they’re adults. They’d have no idea how to process this.

I was a surviving twin and my mum told when I was quite young. Honestly it's never bothered me! Just a fact of life. I never wonder what could have been and am perfectly happy not being a twin.

I had a vanishing twin and also had never heard of it until you mention it and people start to talk. They were Clomid babies and at the 12 week scan we found out we had lost one at 7 weeks. I remember being really really sick back then and I couldn't even keep
Water down then one day the sick got so much better. It would have been around the 7 weeks so I did wonder.

I also don't know if I'll ever tell my DD. Funnily enough she's started asking me "what if I was a twin".

A friend of mine has a 6 (nearly 7) year old daughter. She was originally a twin but her mum told me the embryo stopped developing at 6-7 weeks. Her little girl has known about her twin for at least two of the three years we've known each other.

My friend REALLY grieves for this lost baby. Their house is full of angels and figurines and mementos. They have a huge picture on the wall of their living room representing baby loss.

As a result, her daughter grieves for the twin she never knew. It's both heartbreaking and rage-inducing for me. I lost twins at 19 weeks gestation then went on to conceive twins a second time. They were born 4 months early. My daughter survived but tragically her twin brother died when he was just four days old.

Friend often 'compares' our losses and says she can totally relate.

The loss of a baby in pregnancy at any gestation is devastating and she has every right to grieve in any way she sees fit, but the 'comparing' actually makes me feel physically sick and I can feel my blood boil.

I've seen what knowing this information is doing to her little girl, and although I'd never dream of saying anything, it's NOT healthy for such a young child to have this information put upon them with the expectation that they can process it in an appropriate way.

A miscarriage/loss at 6-7 weeks is absolutely in no way the same as the loss of a baby. I can’t believe your friend would dare compare the two.

i had a miscarriage at 9/10 weeks and it was horrible/painful and sad but I wouldn’t ever compare it to someone losing a baby. It’s nothing like the same thing.

I have twins and I had someone telling me recently about an invisible twin that was lost at 6 weeks and told me it’s like she has twins too. Erm no