What's it like to give birth to one child but lost the other?

[Anonymous]

During my teen years, I found out I had a twin sister. My mom had an emergency C-section but my sister had already passed away.

Growing up, I would notice there was a few minutes of silence (everyone would be quiet and say nothing) every single time it was either my birthday, Thanksgiving Day or Christmas. Then everything was back to normal again. So technically I'm an only child but I wasn't.

I would like to place myself on my parents' shoes for a moment. What's it like to find out you're going to be a parent for the best time, you find out it's twins but 7 months into your pregnancy you find out one of the twins died and you have to wait for the due date still. Then comes the C-section... you have one bundle of joy but the other is gone.

[NamerOfStars]

Truly awful, I imagine. My mother's father died just a few weeks before I was born; her mother, a few weeks after. The clash of feelings must've been terrible for her, and I'm glad that I was there to serve as a distraction (which, as anyone who's had one can tell you, is what babies are best at).

But what you've described would be even worse- first, because you expect to outlive your parents, but not your children, and second, because just going through the live of raising a baby, you'd be constantly confronting everything that had been set up for two of them.

[Asker]

Yes on one hand, my parents still got me as the surviving twin and I'm their blessing but on the other hand, they've experienced the greatest agony/sadness when they lost my sister. They're experienced the two strongest feelings ever, joyness and agony.

[IslaTheWitch]

It's hard to say which emotion is greater, the relief that one child survived or the grieve that one didn't make it... they both are strong and overwhelming... add to it all the hormones, physical pain...

And first weeks after are only worse, because everything was prepared for two...

[Asker]

yeah on one hand you're experiencing your greatest joy having one child, your bundle of joy wrapped up in a blanket, alive and health and on another hand the worst sadness of your life, having to bury your other child.
My parents took longer to tell me I had a twin sister. I didn't find out until I was 15; that's the age they thought I was old enough to understand.

[IslaTheWitch]

Only you can decide if it was a good moment. But I would go for similar age.

[riverrat3]

Do you feel someting is missing

[Asker]

I always used to feel weird on all my b-days and Christmas, even more so whenever there was those brief moments of silence where no one said a single word. I felt as if something was missing in my life but I couldn't tell what.