A Healing Path for Womb twin Survivors (the paperback book) - available from today!

A Healing Path for Womb twin Survivors - available...: My new book, the product of ten years of hard work, is available today! You can get it 1. via Wren Publications ( no postal charges added

2. Any Amazon online store ( ignore them when they say it will take 3 weeks....)

3. Any bookstore: ISBN 9780955780851

The long-awaited sequel to "Womb Twin Survivors: the Lost twin in the Dream of the Womb". Nearly ten years in the making and the result of intensive research, this book sets out in detail a healing path for womb twin survivors in thirty steps. This pathway to healing has been tried and tested by hundreds of womb twin survivors who used the Healing Path ebook as a guide.

A self-help book for womb twin survivors, who are the sole survivors of a twin or multiple pregnancy. Thirty steps to healing, including the background theory, practical steps and self-development exercises. Derived from hundreds of interviews with womb twin survivors over many years, a path to healing is documented in full detail, illustrated with real stories and case studies of womb twin survivors at various stages on their journey.

• Fully illustrated
• Tables, checklists and practical exercises

Includes specific advice and help for the sole survivors of:
• A monozygotic (identical) twin pair
• A dizygotic (fraternal) twin pair
• A multiple pregnancy - triplets, quads or more.

Brings hope to the vast number of womb twin survivors on this planet. But, more than just hope, it provides practical tools to enable us to wake up from our self-defeating dream and become the strong, complete individuals we really are.
Jon, womb twin survivor, Australia.

An enlightenment to read, and to be able to recognise yourself between the words, I have been given a push into the right healing path with enough knowledge to succeed.
Dee, womb twin survivor, South Africa.

Splendid, full of light and written with a simplicity that comes from knowing something very profoundly. Althea takes her readers by the hand and leads them along their healing journey, shedding the light of understanding on each of the thirty steps. Each simple step has a solid foundation in science and research and echoes my own work in this field. Womb twin survivors can follow the footsteps of those who have already gone the same way, the first one being the author.
Maria Angster, therapist, Hungary. (Author of, “Twin stories. Lost twins in family constellation and psychotherapy")

Order your copy today!!

Womb Twin Survivors: December will be stories month!

Womb Twin Survivors: December will be stories month!: Last time we had a stories month it was a great success, so I though we could do it again in December this year, 2012. Please consider sending in your story.

Womb Twin Conference, 17th November, London.

Womb Twin Conference, 17th November, London.  A rare opportunity to meet womb twin survivors and their parents, hear their stories and catch up on the latest research and literature.

Register today, a small deposit secures your place. Details, bookings  - http://wombtwin.com/conference/conference.php

[Brochure:  http://www.wombtwin.com/pdfs/WTconf12.pdf] 
Utube video here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkDaC8CE7wg

Womb Twin Survivors: What is a twinless twin? They ask....

Womb Twin Survivors: What is a twinless twin? They ask....: I found the Wise Geek, web site, and they were talking about twin-less twins. Interesting discussion. See the discussion - you have to read these posts!  Click the link above for en extract.

Womb twin healing book competition ends soon!

My new healing book for womb twin survivors will be published on November 27th 2012. The competition to win a free signed copy is still on, and as yet no one has won it!

It could be you.

Enter the competition today!

Good luck!

Althea

Womb Twin Survivors: A tragic end to the data gathering

Womb Twin Survivors: An end to the data gathering: Well, various circumstances have conspired to bring an end to the data gathering that I have been doing since February 2007.

Click the link for more....

Womb Twin Survivors: The vanishing twin - a mothers perspective

Womb Twin Survivors: The vanishing twin - a mothers perspective: This is one mother's perspective on a vanishing twin pregnancy.  It does make clear that there should be no harm to the sole survivor, who ...

Click the link above for more

Vanishing twin syndrome - a poem

Womb Twin Survivors: Vanishing twin syndrome - a poem: I loved this and wanted to share it with you.

Vanishing Twin Syndrome   Brent Goodman


Turns out one in ten of us suffer: rootless tooth,
clot of hair, undeveloped elbow, unmistakable hinge.

Click the link for more.....

Womb twin survivors and "unwanted same-sex attract...

Womb Twin Survivors: Womb twin survivors and "unwanted same-sex attract...: I have been following this subject for a while now, and I think its time I mentioned my own theories about same sex attraction, to see what can be learned.....

Womb Twin Survivors: Womb Twin on Boo - Come with me, sole survivor

Womb Twin Survivors: Womb Twin on Boo - Come with me, sole survivor: Listen to ‘Come, Sole Survivor!’ on Audioboo

Come with me, sole survivor

Come to where the healing lies amidst the pain

Click the link to read more and hear the clip

Womb Twin Survivors: The healing journey

Womb Twin Survivors: The healing journey: The healing journey for womb twin survivors is one of increasing simplicity. We have to cast off all the extraneous stuff to reveal the real...

Womb Twin Survivors: The womb twin survivors project video

Womb Twin Survivors: The womb twin survivors project video: In October 2011 I was at a conference in the USA and Ken Freeman made a video of me talking about the Womb Twin Survivors project. I thoug...

Womb Twin: A special fifth birthday present!

Womb Twin: A special fifth birthday present!: Today is the fifth birthday of Womb Twin! They have received a special fifth birthday present - Sandy Walkington, who lives in St Albans where Womb twin is based has agreed to become their patron. ...

Womb Twin Survivors: Focus on hoarding (1) do womb twin survivors hoard...

Womb Twin Survivors: Focus on hoarding (1) do womb twin survivors hoard...: The next few posts will focus on a common problem for womb twin survivors - compulsive hoarding. When I began research into the psychology o...

Womb Twin: The hypersensitive person - a womb twin survivor?

Womb Twin: The hypersensitive person - a womb twin survivor?:

Many (if not all) womb twin survivors are super sensitive. Elaine Aron wrote a book about being highly sensitive.  According to Dr. Aron's definition, the Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) has a sensitive nervous system, is aware of subtleties in his/her surroundings, and is more easily overwhelmed when in a highly stimulating environment. I think she is describing womb twin survivors without realising this......

Kurt Cobain - womb twin survivor?

Womb Twin Survivors: Kurt Cobain - womb twin survivor?:  Kurt Cobain shot himself one day at the age of 27.  Kurt was always searching, a super- sensitive, very gifted man who wanted to reach out  to others...

TED talk on shame - compulsory viewing for womb twin survivors!

Womb Twin Survivors: TED talk on shame - compulsory viewing for womb tw...: Do you, like so many womb twin survivors, live your life covered in shame? This will open your eyes!



Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. She has spent the past ten years studying vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame. She spent the first five years of her decade-long study focusing on shame and empathy, and is now using that work to explore a concept that she calls Wholeheartedness.  She poses the questions:

• How do we learn to embrace our vulnerabilities and imperfections so that we can engage in our lives from a place of authenticity and worthiness?
  
  
• How do we cultivate the courage, compassion, and connection that we need to recognize that we are enough – that we are worthy of love, belonging, and joy?

I know why so many people live in a half-hearted way.    Read my books and find out!

The sacrifice of the Betas: ( an essay for womb twin survivors)

Womb Twin Survivors: The sacrifice of the Betas: ( an essay for womb twin survivors...: The study of Darwinism, that is, the evolution of living things over time,  leads one to the discovery of the notion of "survival of the fittest."

Click the link above to learn why you are a miracle......

Womb twin survivors on The Experience Project

Womb Twin Survivors: Womb twin survivors on The Experience Project: I came across this forum today on the Experience Project . Its a great way to share your story and connect with other womb twin survivors!

And there is a lunch in London on 16th June. Coming?


Click here for Womb Twin events page

Conference: Early bird booking ends next week!

WombTwin: Early bird booking ends next week!: There is still a chance to book your place at our conference and save money. A small deposit is all that is needed now, and you can pay the rest later, or even on the day!

Do not oppose, compose!

(…)
What you resist, persists. That is because, by your continued attention to it in a negative way, you continue to place it there. You cannot resist something that is not there. When you resist something, you place it there. By focusing angry or frustrated energy on it, you actually give it more life.
(…)
Changing something is not resisting something, it is merely choosing again. Change is not resistance, but alteration. To modify is not to resist, but rather, to continue Personal Creation.
Modification is creation. Resistance is the end of creation. It firmly holds the previous creation in place.
Do you see?
At every moment of difficulty and challenge in your life you have a choice: opposition or composition. To repeat: You can either oppose that which you are experiencing, or compose that which you chose.
Compose what you chose.

Neale Donald Walsch here


I want to free myself from the pain of loss and live my life fully, as I have the right to live, but I'm angry, frustrated, resisting to accept myself, resisting to accept that I am also this loss.

Neale Donald Walsh says that through this resistance, this rigidity, this tension, I persistently put myself in exactly the same place, I cannot move forward. What he says is that I get stuck in my own plot, repeating the same pattern over and over again.

What he points out as a solution is the non-resistance, the abandonment, the relaxation, based on the deep trust that life is perfect and that everything is as it should be.
Neale says that there is the possibility, rather than fight to eliminate the sadness and confusion (e.g.) that characterises me, to receive it with tranquillity, only compounding, changing/modifying certain practical options in my life to achieve a full life that I crave.

Composition rather than opposition!
... sounds good to me!

Womb twin story for today: I am not supposed to be here

Womb Twin Survivors: Womb twin story: I am not supposed to be here: I was born as part of identical twins, and i am the only survivor.  My twin Rebecca passed away almost immediately after my mother gave bir...

Womb Twin Survivors: Womb twin story 1: I found my twin in a dream

Womb Twin Survivors: Womb twin story: I found my twin in a dream: Around the age of 10 years I spoke with my mother one afternoon about a common dream/nightmare which I had from time to time as a little boy...

(The first of 30 stories for April, check in at my blog to read them all.) 

Althea

Womb Twin Survivors: April womb twin survivor stories begin tomorrow

Womb Twin Survivors: April womb twin survivor stories begin tomorrow: I have been asking for stories written by womb twin survivors and we now have more than thirty.  If you would like to send us your story...

Womb Twin Survivors: The conference: our keynote speaker is Roger Neigh...

Womb Twin Survivors: The conference: our keynote speaker is Roger Neigh...: At your fifth annual conference in November this year, we have a keynote speaker, Dr Roger Neighbour,  who was writing about womb twin surv...

Womb Twin Survivors: Post-conference workshop, Nov 18th 9.30-6pm

Womb Twin Survivors: Post-conference workshop, Nov 18th 9.30-6pm: Well. I've finally got it organised - we have created a workshop for womb twin survivors based on family constellation therapy.  My new frie...

Womb Twin Survivors: A healing path for womb twin survivors - competit...

Womb Twin Survivors: A healing path for womb twin survivors - competit...: Have you tried my new Healing path competition yet?  If you would like me to keep you posted  on the date of publication - later this year -...

Womb Twin Survivors: Two little birds: a new book available soon!

Womb Twin Survivors: Two little birds: a new book available soon!: Two Little Birds   An illustrated story book for the youngest womb twin survivors The stor...

Womb Twin Survivors: More about that film about a lone twin

Womb Twin Survivors: More about that film about a lone twin: This article is about a film made in Canada Belgian filmmaker Anna Van der Wee interviewed fraternal twins Denise and Michael for her docu...

Womb Twin Survivors: The Womb Twin conference - booking now open!

Womb Twin Survivors: The Womb Twin conference - booking now open!: Saturday November 17th 2012, 9 - 5pm At Friends House, 173 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BJ, England View Larger Map ...

Womb Twin Survivors: This is a lovely film about a lone twin. Film...

Womb Twin Survivors: This is a lovely film about a lone twin.




Film...: This is a lovely film about a lone twin. Filmmaker Discusses Loss and Love in Lone Twin ...

Womb Twin Loss at Birth - or - Baby Stealing???

This is a story about twin/baby stealing in Spain, but when you think about it, this could have gone on anywhere at anytime. It sounds just like my story which took place in Michigan, USA in 1963 - my parents were told my twin died at birth but years later I was unable to locate any information about what happened to her. Although they donated her to science, there was no record of where she ended up. That may be customary for science donations, as I was told by the hospital and nearby university that she may have ended up in a mass grave or cremated. She could even be floating in a jar as a specimen for all I know. But reading this story made me think perhaps they could have falsified or exaggerated her condition to increase the chances of a science donation so that there would be less of a trail...I will never know if this is just a fantasy about looking for my twin or if this could really be the case. In any event, my heart goes out to the Vega family and I am thrilled they care enough to search for their son in case they can tell him he wasn't abandoned by them. They are wonderful parents!

Families fight to find children stolen as infants in Spain
Fri Dec 16, 2011 1:50 PM EST
By Kate Snow and Jessica Hopper
Rock Center

Luis Vega is on a mission to meet every man born in Madrid, Spain on Nov. 20, 1977. That's the day doctors told him that his baby son was stillborn, but he and his wife, Ines, believe their child was in fact stolen from the hospital.

“We have a son somewhere out there,” Luis Vega said.

The Vega family isn’t alone in believing their child was stolen. This year, more than a thousand families have come forward with claims that they were victims of baby trafficking committed by a variety of networks from the 1940s until as recently as the early 1990s.

Armed with a list of the 61 names of boys born in Madrid on the same day he lost his son, Vega is making calls and knocking on doors because he is convinced his son is alive.

“What we just want only, is to tell him, ‘You have not been abandoned,’” Vega said.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For Vega, the memory of his son’s birth is still fresh. He and his wife went to a hospital in Madrid on a Sunday in November 1977. They were already parents to one son and believed they were expecting just one more child when they received surprising news: they were having twins.

“I started to think, I got two,” Vega said. “So, I was absolutely excited, astonished.”

The excitement faded when doctors came to Vega and told him that one of the twins, a boy, was dead.

“I felt frozen,” he said.

Vega said the doctor told him, “I recommend you not see him.”

At that time in Spain, doctors were authority figures who were virtually unapproachable. Vega simply didn’t question that the doctor was telling the truth.

The doctor told Vega that the hospital would handle the burial of the baby boy. His wife, Ines, was under anesthesia and was unaware of what had happened. Vega ultimately told her the sad news.



The couple comforted one another and did their best to move on with their lives, raising their newborn daughter, Ana, and their older son.

Every year on Ana’s birthday, Luis and Ines talked about her twin, the boy they lost.

This January, Vega and his wife were eating lunch and watching TV when a news report stopped them cold and made them think that the son they’d lost 33 years ago might actually be alive.

An unbelievable story was exploding in the press, allegations that for decades, organized networks stole newborn babies from their mothers and sold the babies to other families. On January 27, more than 250 families filed cases with Spain’s attorney general. That number has since risen to nearly 1500 cases.

Vega and his wife requested documentation from the cemetery where they believed their son had been buried and sent a letter to the hospital where he had been born. Cemetery officials told them that no one had been buried at the cemetery with their family’s last name.

When Vega told his daughter, Ana, that her twin brother might be alive after all, she was shocked.

“I spent like a month with a knot in my stomach. I couldn’t eat,” she said.

Ana Vega created a blog to help in the search for her lost twin.

“We are not looking, you know, for revenge,” she said. “We just want to find him and that’s it and to, if he wants to, you know, be part of our family, great. If he doesn’t, well, you know, that’s his choice as well.”

If anyone is responsible for prompting the discovery of this dark part of Spain’s history, it is documentary filmmaker and author Montse Armengou. Armengou was among the very first to report on systematic baby stealing.

“In Spain, from a long period of time, from the ‘40s until ‘80s as a minimum, we can talk about children that were kidnapped from their families, from their mothers,” Armengou said.

It started as a form of political repression under Fascist dictator Francisco Franco. Franco seized power during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. Under his leadership, the government would remove children from mothers who were political prisoners and give them to families who supported the regime.

“[In] the beginning, [it] was a political repression and after became a moral and ideological repression against single mothers. You have to know that during the Franco’s regime, the power of Catholic Church was very, very strong,” Armengou said.

Doctors, often with the help of nuns, would tell young single mothers that their child was dead or force single mothers to give their children up for adoption. At the time, single young women were still considered minors until they were 26 years old.

“It’s impossible to ask for help because you are nothing,” Armengou said. “You are only a single mother. That means that you are nothing, you are garbage, you are waste.”

The political and moral repression became a booming business with families paying the equivalent of what it would cost for an apartment, in order to obtain a child.

For those who believe they are victims of the now defunct organized networks of baby stealing, the legal process has been frustratingly slow. Despite the hundreds of cases filed, no one has been charged with any crime.

“We’re moving as fast as we can. We’re dealing with cases that are incredibly difficult,” said prosecutor Pedro Crespo who has been tasked by Spain’s attorney general to coordinate the hundreds of official investigations across Spain.

Crespo said that the passage of time, incomplete records and the fact that many of those involved are already dead has hampered the investigations.

For some, like the Vega family, the doctor they hold responsible for stealing their child is still alive.

“This bastard has taken our life,” said an emotional Luis Vega.

Vega recently became the president of S.O.S. Bebes Robados Madrid, one of the organizations helping those who think they might be victims.

Vega said that he doesn’t expect he’ll ever truly get justice, but hopes ultimately he’ll find his son.

“I’m convinced,” Vega said. “Otherwise, why [am I] going to fight…I’m fighting for this and everything.”