A modern perspective on womb twin survivors.

One of our members, Lynda Haddon, wrote this article about my recent book which deals with a womb twin survivor. I thought other members might benefit from what she says from an even more modern perspective than I'd ever considered.

"There is a life before life that most often goes unrecorded and even unrecognized in the human journey. It is life in the womb; a space for incubation often treated as a pre-history of no special consequence to the life narrative that follows. As technology has sharpened our gaze into this ambiotic existence, human experience has been irrevocably altered. Such gains in insight can also create losses, unexpected twists and turns of ante-natal life that can carry great significance.

A woman, pregnant, seeing her first ultrasound image can see the outline of two babies. Then, a follow-up appointment, a second ultrasound, and the twin has vanished. A precious child is gone, a sibling lost, and so is a unique parenting experience.

The fate of the Vanishing Twin remains enigmatic. Was it an apparition, an aberration of imaging, or a legitimate loss, a being leaving no trace of its existence apart from a searing image in its mother’s and often its womb-mate’s mind?

It is not uncommon for people, seemingly ignorant of this ‘loss’ to develop fantasies about “being with someone else,” or needing to live their lives for two. Is it a personal memory of womb life or an intuition of an unexpressed part of their mother’s mind?  

If told later in life about the loss, there are often feelings of relief at not being “crazy” but sometimes too, anger and distress at not being told all along. 

Sylvia Dickey Smith‘s novel. A WAR OF HER OWN makes an important contribution to womb-twin survivors by raising awareness of this phenomenon and educating others as to what can be its long-term possible emotional effects.

“…..I used to feel guilty for being alive,” observed one survivor who lost her 

womb-mate early in her mother’s pregnancy, “I thought my parents hated me because I was not it……I often feel very alone and low.”

We know that multiples (twins, triplets etc) are aware of each other in utero. Hence, when womb-mates fail to survive, a rent in the fabric of identity can be the result for the womb-twin survivor. Being with another at this formative stage of life can surely leave a lasting impression with reverberating impact. How to grieve a life that in many ways wasn’t? How to mourn a Vanishing Twin when there is no one to validate its life? Here, we have a baby of technology, an image on a photo, a welcome addition whose existence remains un-named.

New technologies are also creating new losses that society has yet to fully 

acknowledge. The culling of fetuses following in vitro implantation when too many take hold is a prime example. A necessary step to improve the chances of survival of the other babies, it can nonetheless complicate post-natal life for parents and for those babies who survive. A major hurdle is that a loss must be recognized before it can be grieved. Such losses, therefore, can pass under the radar of what society views as a legitimate loss. A loss unnamed, of course, is not necessarily a loss unrecognized at a deeper emotional level.

Lynda Haddon

Multiple Birth Educator

Multiple Birth:  Prenatal Education & Bereavement Support

www.multiplebirthsfamilies.com

Recipient of a Community Builder's Award from United Way for her work in the multiple birth community and with the Ottawa Coalition for the Prevention of Low Birth Weight.  Recipient of two Awards from Multiple Births Canada for her work both nationally and internationally.