Vanishing twin syndrome

[Crazydoglady123]

Has anyone experienced VTS? I was pregnant with IVF twins and had a scan at 6 and 7 weeks where all was fine and heard their heartbeats. I then at 9 weeks had a temporary loss of nausea for two days which prompted me to have a private scan (9+3) and discovered one of my babies hearts had very recently stopped beating. This was two weeks ago on Wednesday. I had a scan at EPU a few days later (9+5) which confirmed my remaining baby was still okay and that I will likely reabsorb my lost baby. My next scan with EPU is on Friday but yesterday I woke up to a brown discharge on my pad (still using pads as had been on pessaries). I spoke to midwife and she said I could go a&e to reassure myself but tbh I think that'll be more traumatic as our a&e isn't letting partners in and I've really been struggling dealing with the loss as it is. I decided unless I start passing red blood then I'm going to try and hold out till tomorrow when I can speak to someone in EPU. I feel heavy and a bit achy in my abdomen like I'm about to start a period. The brown discharge is still on and off but I think it's looked worse because it was mixed in with remaining pessary gunk. This afternoon I had one occasion when I went to the loo I lost a few scraggly brown bits of tissue like stuff but only small and had a smidge of reddy/brown blood on the tissue but no more since. What I'm struggling to find online is if I do start passing the remnants of my lost baby, will my alive baby survive this? Has anyone been through the same?

OP, I hope you are OK. I had a VT but I didn’t lose any gunk at that time. Do you have a midwife yet? You need to speak to EPU and get another scan.

@LadyLyndon I spoke to her yesterday and she said I could go a&e straight away or wait and see if start bleeding red blood. She said brown will be old blood which isn't too bad. I'm planning on ringing EPU first thing tomorrow

@LadyLyndon sorry to hear you've been through it too. How many weeks was you?

Don't know if this is reassuring or not but I had bleeding at 9 weeks with dc2 which I was worried was miscarriage but it wasn't. It was kind of like how you described though... Like brown strings... Totally different to the time I had a miscarriage which was pink blood followed by red.

Sorry for the loss of one of your twins. I think it does happen a fair bit with the surviving twin remaining healthy. You must be on an emotional roller-coaster right now. Hope you're alright.

A friend had VT, with IVF twins. She did have some slight bleeding but the remaining twin was fine.m

I had this with my first pregnancy and only found out at the 12 week scan there had been two. It was a strange feeling because I was so worried that there may be something wrong, the relief that my baby was healthy and moving took over and I barely registered it. It’s only years later after another three losses that I really acknowledged it. Anyway, I didn’t lose any tissue or blood either, my body seemed to reabsorb the other twin and I now have a very happy healthy almost 6 year old and another due in Nov. I wish you nothing but the best for the rest of your pregnancy.

Hi OP

I had previously had 3 MC so I was given early scans for my next pg. I was scanned at 6 weeks and told I was expecting twins and then again at 10 weeks to be told that one twin had been reabsorbed. No bleeding.

You have some positive stories here so 🤞and lots of unmumsnetty hugs x

Thanks everyone. I kind of feel like I want to find somewhere/be reassured that if it did turn into passing blood and clots from the dead baby that the other one would still survive. Obviously hoping it doesn't turn into that but obviously guessing your cervix would be open at that point passing stuff?

Sorry for all your losses too ❤️

I have this happen after an ivf twin pregnancy, twice unfortunately. First time I ended up with a missed miscarriage for baby no 2 after loosing baby no 1 around the 7 week mark - no bleeding at all. Second time ivf twins again, on prednisalone for natural killer cells, lost baby no 1 at 7 weeks again, big red bleed at 9 weeks but now have a fabulous 10 year old from that pregnancy. The bleeding didn't affect him at all!

Good luck with your pregnancy - I can still remember how stressful those early weeks were. I went on to have 2 further children naturally too, but the early weeks were long and difficult waiting and hoping and waiting.

I'll keep everything crossed for you xx

@Zeebeededodah oh wow so bleeding literally means nothing! Sorry for your losses and yes it is the most stressful experience ever. I feel like I'm only just starting to get over the loss to now be faced with this! I went to the toilet this morning and it's definitely brown tissuey stuff I'm passing. Nothing you read up online says anything about passing that with VTS, only "spotting or bleeding" 🤷🏽‍♀️

So sorry to read this @Crazydoglady123, I hope everything goes ok for you with your remaining twin ❤️ Not to be pushy but you know where we are if you need us 😘

OP are you able to provide an update on baby 2? Hope all ok x

Yes, hope all is well with baby 2.

Hey @MyOtherProfile @Giacamo3 I'm currently 17 weeks now with my singleton who is a little fighter. It's been really hard emotionally to get my head round (I don't think pregnancy hormones help!) but I'm able to talk about it more. My 12 week scan was awful as my lost twin was still visible and perfect baby form still, not reabsorbed like all the midwifes/consultants had advised. I've got such a fear of scans too and have so many bad dreams about being forced to go for another scan. I also have an anterior placenta and so haven't felt any kicks/movement yet which has made me really anxious but at my antenatal appointment on Thursday the midwife let me hear the heart beat with the Doppler so I feel reassured again. The midwifes have been lovely about it all, checking in on me between appointments. They've also given me more frequent appointments too and said if I need reassurance anytime to pop in and they'll listen to the heartbeat again. Support wise I found hardly anywhere in the UK for VTS but found a Facebook group called "VTS Parents" if anyone reading this goes through the same and is looking for support

Great to hear from you and that baby is doing well.

Very pleased that all is going well and it's great that the midwives are checking in on you and reassuring you. X

So lovely to hear your update. The anxiety is so hard - it really affected me during each of my pregnancies and made it hard to relax and believe everything would turn out ok. I hope that you get to feel those reassuring kicks soon - the next 20 or so weeks will fly and drag in equal measures. I loved being pregnant but blimey, my first pregnancy felt like a long hard slog of stress - but the joy of cuddling my baby at the end made it all worth it.