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Multiple births

When do you start showing with twins? What is life with twins like? Join the conversation on our Multiple Births forum.

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Original poster

Has anyone else lost a twin baby at relatively early gestation ?

28 replies

YearOfYouRemember · 30/09/2018 17:21

Have you told the surviving baby?

I'm regretting not bringing up our surviving baby knowing there were two and every time I think we should tell them there is something else going on in their lives and I worry if it goes wrong it will be too much for them.

OP posts:

Planningpermissionnightmare · 04/12/2018 15:09

We did around 10 weeks.

I will MAYBE tell him when he is an adult but I dont think he has any reasons to know now. It would just confuse him. He is 4 but even if he was 10 I dont know what he would do with that information as a child. He has absolutely no need to know in my opinion.

NeedSleepNow · 13/12/2018 07:32

Yes I did at around 10 weeks too. I will probably eventually tell him when he's a lot older (he's only 1 now). I think it would be quite a hard thing for him to understand and to deal with and I think my older two children would struggle with it too (we decided not to let them know during the pregnancy that there had been two babies, as they were so young and would have worried for the rest of the pregnancy)

JohnnyKarate · 13/12/2018 07:37

I was suppose to be a twin. My mum told me when I was maybe 11/12. It was surprisingly comforting to hear, she’d lost my twin at 26 weeks.

I know you will all think this is crazy but I’d always felt like part of me was missing and in that moment I felt at peace with it.

We have a tree planted for her in the garden and it has a little fairy my mum carved into it, sort of peering down from a branch. I always go and sit by it and have a chat with her when I’m home.

ForgivenessIsDivine · 13/12/2018 07:41

I am with JohnnyKarate on this. Not the same circumstances but I always felt I was carrying someone else's grief. Things made a lot more sense to me when my subconscious was able to process it.

Aethelthryth · 13/12/2018 07:44

I lost one twin at about 8-9 weeks. I have never told my son but the idd thing is that when he was little he would talk and dream about having a twin. I think that he has forgotten all about it now

igot99problems · 13/12/2018 07:45

My mum lost my twin very early on and I didn't find out until I was an adult. I didn't mind not being told, and it was shared with me in a normal conversation about childbirth, not as a big reveal. I understand as an adult that these things happen, not sure I would have understood so well when I was younger, especially if a huge deal had been made of it.

People always ask if I feel like I am missing something or if I feel anything, and the honest answer is no. And I am normally hugely sentimental about things...

wrapsuperstar · 13/12/2018 07:46

We are a very matter-of-fact household. My four year old DD2 was a twin and this has been mentioned, in passing, a couple of times when talking about pregnancy and childbirth. She’ll get more detail if/when she wants it and it’ll always be age appropriate. At least this way there won’t be a ‘big reveal’ of the news when she’s older... it’s part of her story.

RiverTam · 13/12/2018 07:49

Yes ( at 8 weeks) and no. If I hadn't been having early scans I would never have known. DD is very sensitive and I think it would distress her and would be of little benefit. Maybe when she's an adult.

Fannyfanakerpants · 13/12/2018 07:54

I lost a twin at about 10 weeks. I knew from day one I was pregnant with twins so it was hard to see no heartbeat at the scan. I haven't told my dd4 but I guess I will when it comes up. My mum lost my dbs twin slightly later than me. As children we've always known and do a toast on my brothers birthday.

Rhubarbisevil · 13/12/2018 07:58

I lost a twin at 12 weeks. We told DS when he was 3/4 and he became very upset so we haven’t upplayed it since.

prettywhiteguitar · 13/12/2018 08:02

I’m not sure why you would do that, I had the same my last pregnancy I lost the twin at 10 weeks but why would I burden the children with that information? It’s not appropriate

Rubberduckies · 13/12/2018 08:05

My mum lost a twin when carrying my younger sister. We've always known and I don't remember ever being told, so our parents must have told us from the beginning. I think sometimes it's easier to tell children things before they really understand, because then it isn't distressing.

violeticecream · 13/12/2018 08:07

I lost a twin at about nine weeks. I have not told my daughter. I don't think I ever will to be honest. She once said to me oh I would love to have a twin, wonder what it would be like etc. I couldn't tell her. But that made me so sad afterwards

drinkswineoutofamug · 13/12/2018 09:13

Lost a twin at about 17 weeks. Daughter is nearly 20. Never told her. Never felt the need to tell her.

payperview · 13/12/2018 09:22

My mum lost my triplet. My DB and I survived,. I've always felt there was someone missing from my life and believe the lost baby was the sister I've always yearned for.

Soso7789 · 13/12/2018 09:51

My mum lost my brother's twin. She blurted it out one day to my friend in front of me when she was talking about someone else who had lost a twin. My brother and the rest of our family don't know, only dad. It was a horrible way for her to tell me (I was 10 and then had to go to school, and she shushed me from talking about it so he wouldn't hear).

I guess mum didn't want him to define himself by it, and she carries that grief, but i expect he will react badly if he ever finds out - because of the secrecy, and me knowing

JohnnyKarate · 13/12/2018 11:29

I will add to mine that my mum probably wouldn’t have told me but I found my scan in a baby box and there was clearly two babies there so it opened the discussion very naturally.

PutYourShirtOnMartin · 13/12/2018 13:57

I lost a twin at 14 weeks. The other twin is now in her 30s. I told her when she was in her early teens... she was very calm and understanding. She said and stil, says she felt like there was something missing but it all made sense. We send two hearts to each other on her birthday and always put two kisses on cards and messages. It's our code.

FredaNerkk · 16/12/2018 00:59

Yes (lost twin 7 weeks or so - was bleeding early in pregnancy. Had a scan and sonographer said there were two embryo sacs (I was elated, it was my first scan)... then she added "but only one heartbeat". She sent me home saying that it was 50:50 whether remaining embryo would survive the bleed, but there was nothing that science/medicine could do. I should just go home and wait and see what happened one the next fortnight.What a way to break the news!).

I told DD and her younger sister when they were both young (under 5). Not all the details. just that there was a twin who died when very, very, very tiny. They were curious, and still love to hear stories about their birth, pregnancy and early times. It's part of our family folklore. There are lots of stories, so the twin story doesn't come up very often, but occasionally one of them will bring it up. They find it intriguing. I simply explained that in some ways it was sad and unfortunate, but in other ways it was very normal, and the twin was too little to know or feel anything. It simply wasn't meant to be. I am glad I told them, and it is consistent with the way we generally are with each other (very open).

Original poster

YearOfYouRemember · 28/12/2018 19:39

I am sorry for you all that have had losses.

My son has emotional difficulties but we don't know. What they are. Telling him could make things better or worse. It might help him understand why he feels as he does or might make him more sad in relation to his relationship with his siblings.

Apologies for anyone who posted and felt I was rude not to respond. There was a large gap between my post and the first reply and so it dropped off my TIO listings.

OP posts:

leaveby10 · 05/01/2019 18:26

Yes - I was pregnant with triplets - ds had an identical twin(and a non identical), his ID twin wasn't a viable life but he was giving ds heart failure, as they had twin to twin transfusion syndrome and I had to have surgery to separate them. They both know, I'm sure it was late primary when I told them.

ElephantShrew · 05/01/2019 19:37

I have one set of twins, my next pregnancy had two sacs at 7 weeks (early scan to check for twins!) but only one heartbeat, second sac was smaller and we were told it was unlikely to develop further, it had disappeared by the 12 week scan. DC3 is only 3 and I haven't mentioned it to any of them as yet but it's not something I would purposely keep from them as they get older, I expect we will talk about it when they're old enough to understand as the subject arises - similarly will probably talk about the baby we lost before we had the twins. DC3 has never given any indication that they feel less than complete in their own right or asked why they don't have a twin.

Shadow1986 · 05/01/2019 19:47

ElephantShrew - that’s EXACTLY what happened to me. I had twins and then on my next pregnancy we went for an early scan at 7 weeks to check for twins and lo and behold two sacs again, but only one heartbeat.

ElephantShrew · 05/01/2019 20:04

It sounds terrible @Shadow1986 but I felt (and still feel) a mixture of sadness and relief. There's only a year between our twins and DC3 and I struggled to cope as it was, I think another set of twins may have utterly flattened me. But I do sometimes feel sad for her that she doesn't have her twin to go through life with like her siblings do, even though she's happily oblivious and loves being the baby of the family!

SageYourResoluteOracle · 05/01/2019 22:20

I post a twin at 5 weeks but didn't know until around 8 weeks that it had been a twin. I had IVF so knew I'd had two embryos implanted. I was very clearly pregnant- had nosebleeds etc before even testing and strong positive appeared on the test stick before I'd finished washing my hands. Then I bled the following week. Thought it was game over. Had an early scan at the fertility clinic and there was a blood pocket and a sac with foetal pole. Then 3 weeks later, strong heartbeat for DD and where the blood pocket had been, an empty sac. DD knows she was an IVF baby (donor egg with known donor actually) and has seen the picture of the two embryos but doesn't know that briefly there was a twin. I'm not sure if we'll tell her. She's 7 now and wants a sibling more than anything 🙁

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