David Cohen - Telling your daughter she is a womb twin survivor

I found this article by David Cohen in the Child Health section of the Telegraph: it shows how telling your child she is a twin will not upset her, but rather it will confirm something she already knew. This story is not unusual or strange,  it is being recreated in homes throughout the world.

My first daughter, Jessie, began life as a twin. We never knew she was a twin until six weeks into the pregnancy when my wife, Pamela, began bleeding and the twin was miscarried. The doctor who examined her called it a "blighted sac", a euphemism for a fertilised ovum that was defective or too weak to go the distance. Pamela was philosophical, relieved that the healthy foetus had survived, but for weeks I felt unexpectedly sad. Something had been lost, I felt, something no one wanted to acknowledge.

As the pregnancy developed, we seemed to forget about it, but then a strange thing happened: after Jessie was born, my wife said she kept on hearing another baby cry. She found herself searching for it and feeling, at feeding times, that she had to find and feed the other baby first.

The feeling was intense and it lasted six weeks - the exact amount of time that the twin had survived in her womb - but then it receded and we forgot about the lost twin again.

From the age of two - or to be more precise, from the age she could express herself verbally - Jessie yearned for a sibling, literally begged us for one. And when, two years later, we were ready to oblige, she surprised us by announcing that the new baby would be "her twin". We were convinced we were having a boy, but Jessie insisted it would be a girl, and when her sister duly arrived, she suggested we call her Kayla, a name that seemed to fit the gentleness of our new arrival.

Read more of this excellent article

A healing path (7) Forgiving others

 This is what it is like to be filled with resentment.

Why doesn’t everyone else have this? How do they cope? I am jealous & resentful of all those people around me doing normal things – I feel totally disconnected today – the whole world could blow up I wouldn’t give a toss –I’m sick of fighting this – sick of trying to make a life – I don’t want to accept myself as a depressive failure because I know I’m not – I’m cut off from that part of me that loves life – I’m cut off from the joy, the being-ness – I feel alone & desperate – like its never going to be any different – like this is all there is .

What is it in ME that I have to do this emotional work – where do I ever get with it? Where am I going? I just don’t want to be this person today – this person with all this shit still, this person with all these emotional problems, with these anxieties, with no job, with an underweight, undernourished sick body.  I don’t want it anymore & I’m not sure how much longer I can cope with this. Manage to get thro life – but I want to LIVE it. What do I do with it? – what do I do with it? How do I become free from this?

Resentment starts when our expectations or dreams are disappointed. We have lost something very valuable to us. We want recompense for the damages. But who can recompense us for the loss of our womb twin? This is a loss that cannot be restored.

The answer is to forgive.

Freud the narcissist - and his siblings

Now here things get intersting:

Here is an interesting article on siblings, with Freud as an example on unconscious feeling's towards one's siblings.

The role of siblings in mental life may have first been underemphasized by Freud, who may have had his own reasons for such downplaying. For example, Freud as a child had a private bedroom filled with books while all of his siblings lived together in one other, crowded room.

 And in another place:

As noted by the authors, the index of the complete standard edition of Freud's works has no reference to sibling (although Siberia is referenced).

Parents: do they really f**k you up?

"This Be The Verse" by Philip Larkin



They fuck you up, your mum and dad.

They may not mean to, but they do.

They fill you with the faults they had

And add some extra, just for you.



But they were fucked up in their turn

By fools in old-style hats and coats,

Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

And don't have any kids yourself.


 BUT

Womb twin kids - when the rest of the family looks on in silence

When it is clear to you that there is a young womb twin survivor in the family, and no one seems to be talking about it, what can one do?  This is a problem I have had from the beginning, ever since I learned how to recognise a womb twin survivor.   I notice womb twin survivors  all the time now - people of all ages, but when the individual concerned is a child, I badly want to speak out.  But should I?  Should anyone?  Should we speak out or remain silent?

It seems that there are several reasons why  its NOT a good idea to mention it...

1. Parents may be sensitive to implied criticism, as if there must be something wrong with their child.
2. The usual scepticism about the possibility that  the loss of a twin early in pregnancy can possibly have any kind of effect on the child who survives.
3. Its a private matter and no one should interfere with how any parent brings up a child.

(Of course I  have an additional problem, in that as founder of Womb Twin  I would think that, wouldn't I? People groan every time I mention it... Not again, they cry..... understandable enough I suppose.)

But there are more reasons why its worth mentioning, but how?

My twin baby vanished

On this forum Mums discuss their pregnancies. This Mum  said "I had Vanishing Twin Syndrome at my 16 week ultrasound nothing was left at all.. mine happened at 8 weeks... I am now a proud momma to a baby girl.. I still think about the other one sometimes.. I will probably tell her someday that she had a twin..."

The bereavement of mothers who lose one twin is not often considered, as this article shows:-

How Mothers Cope with the Death of a Twin or Higher Multiple

The Womb Twin Kids project - latest

So we held our first launch meeting last night, but there were  more of us than them : in fact there were none of them! We set out the room with a big display, using teddies for twin babies:

On the BBC - and only one negative call!

Yesterday I went to the BBC Three Counties studios in Luton filled with nervousness which is unusual for me, as I like radio, but I was soon put at my ease, especially when I met the presenter.
He is Jonathan Vernon-Smith and he does a phone-in show.

You can listen to the programme online here ( my bit is in the middle)

Being a womb twin survivor (1) emotional abandonment

I discovered a new term recently - "emotional abandonment".

This is from a blog by a child abuse survivor: 

The majority of the time when I write about my childhood, I mostly write only about the physical abuse and the brainwashing that I went through. But there was more to my childhood than that. When people think of child abuse, it's always the physical abuse that comes to mind. There are other factors that play into child abuse though such as abandonment and neglect.



It set me thinking, as a parent myself, of how the experience of emotional neglect by a child seems to be a reflection of a particular form of behaviour by the parent.  Thus:

1. The child seeks out connection ( empathy, love,  support, help) with the parent.
2. The parent does not provide the desired form of connection ( empathy love support etc) 

The result is that the child feels emotionally abandoned.

But what if the child is a womb twin survivor?  What if their sense of abandonment lies in their Dream of the Womb? Then, regardless of how supportive empathetic and loving the parent tries to be, the child will push them away in order to keep alive their sense of emotional abandonment.

What if the parent was also a womb twin survivor?

What if they experience the child pushing them away as being emotionally abandoned by their own child? What if a lack of connection is in their Dream of the Womb? The result is a whole family who lacks emotional connection, one with another.

The more I explore this idea the more huge areas of pain and sadness can be explained.  We need to bring the womb twin hypothesis into all areas where relationships are not working.

The hypothesis, formed in 2003 and  backed up by all my research efforts since then. 

There are at least 600 million people in the world who are womb twin survivors, all of whom are trying to recreate their Dream of the Womb in order to keep their twin alive in their lives. That is a lot of people - enough to support a large group of professionals, who, totally ignorant of what is going on, try to help, largely in vain.

There is a lot we don't know, and we should remain open-minded about the possibility that a wide range of relationship problems are related to being a womb twin survivor.  As much as I have been able to discover so far is in my latest book - 30 chapters, 300 references - but I know I am only scratching the surface.

All comments welcomed. Any parents out there? Are you emotionally abandoned by your parents? Let's get talking about this, it might help!

The Womb Twin Kids project update

Today we got back our internet connection, after  five days of silence!  So a little update on what is going on in my Womb Twin Survivors project.

I have Ben, a new wonderful volunteer, who is helping me to enter the thousands of pieces of data from 631 questionnaires into an Excel file for  statistical analysis, and we have made a start.  We will share the task and believe me, that is going to make a huge difference!  ( That will make a total of 1161 respondents!)

Also finally, and not without various adventures involving laminators and staple guns (not to mention a covey of extremely helpful librarians)   I put up a two week display for the womb twin kids project in the childrens corner of our local library:

The display of twins and womb twin survivors, using twin teddies  as illustrations

 The teddies seem to work well. For example, here are fraternal opposite sex twins:

We have a new logo:

 

Not to mention a new story book with wonderful colourful illustrations, about two little birds, who hatched out of the same egg...... 

Check out the web site, www.wombtwinkids.co.uk as it develops.

More tomorrow - 58 emails to answer now!

My child's twin died (2) How can he or she possibly be aware of that?

Should a parent tell their sole surviving twin about the twin who died? The debate is pointless, because the child will already be aware,  even without being told.

Sad, but true.  Children are aware - more so than adults - of life before birth.  Some therapists who specialize in pre- and perinatal psychotherapy come across the lost twin in therapy. Other therapists may not notice or understand what they are seeing. The womb twin kids project is  my attempt to put that right.

Here is a compelling description of a child remembering her sister and brothers conceived during IVF:

IVF children

One unusual and unexpected characteristic that almost all of these children had in common was that they had some sort of relationship to the fertilized eggs which (or should I say who?) were not used in the implantation and are now frozen. None of the IVF families I worked with had decided what to do with the frozen eggs. 

The mother explained to me that her daughter had been very upset over a dream and had asked to be held for a long time that morning. When the mother asked her to share what she wanted, the girl replied, “We have to do something about my brothers and sisters.” She then explained, “ I have five brothers and three sisters.” The mother then told me that there were seven remaining embryos. The math works out, considering that the living twin is one of the siblings, while the frozen ones are the others. Then the girl went on to say, “My other brothers and sisters are freezing. They are in a cave in the snow and they are crying. We have to do something about them.” 

What can you say about an experience like this? I feel that it certainly deserves serious reflection.

So  womb twin kids are already aware of  their twin: would it not be a kindness therefore to explain those vague feelings of loss in real terms? And how can a parent  or guardian talk to a child about their lost twin?  How can you say it so that it wont be painful and confusing?

That is for tomorrow.......

[Note:  There has been a hold up at the printers where my new book is being printed : if you have ordered it and have been told it is unavailable, do not despair.  I hope to sort it out soon, but our four day Easter holiday hasn't helped..... More news tomorrow. ]

Womb twin kids: (1) Should I tell my child about their twin?

If you are a parent and  you were for a short while expecting  twins, but one twin died during the pregnancy - or was born dead- then should you tell your child? This is how the debate may go:

NO

•  But is it necessarily something your child needs to know ? 
• The whole idea of pregnancy loss may just be too much for a child to understand.  
• As a young child there is no need to tell her. 
• It would be confusing and do much more harm than good.  
• You certainly don't want your child to feel guilty about being the survivor. 
• And you certainly don't want your child to feel remorse or mourning. 
• I don't want to create a sense of loss that otherwise wouldn't exist.

 YES:

•  Telling your young womb twin survivor may be a way for you to preserve the baby's memory and make him/her part of the family in a more concrete way. It may be a way to let your other children know there was another baby. 
•  Maybe if it was a logical time (i.e. perhaps if your womb twin kid is a girl and one day she may be pregnant with her own child.
•  Tell a girl at the stage of having children herself, depending on see how emotionally stable she is at the time. I would hate her to grow up feeling that a part of her was missing. 
•  Your child might overhear or sense it and get it twisted up, best to tell the truth, straight out. 
•  Twins might run in your family. What if your son has a twin one day? Would you then want to say "Well, that's not too surprising as you were supposed to be a twin." 
•  Waiting until the baby is a teenager risks it being a big deal. Telling it to the kid early on (in terms he / she can understand and then explaining in more adult terms when he is old enough to comprehend) almost guarantees it will never be a big deal or a problem. 
• Be sure you know exactly what your want your child to take away from this information, and what you don't.

What do you think?

Learn more about the Womb Twin Kids project  here:


www.wombtwinkids.co.uk

Chapter 13: My child is a womb twin survivor

This chapter will explore how it feels to be the parent of a young womb twin survivor.  Some parents find it hard to cope with their own loss, some are not sure of the best way to tell their child about their twin and  some experience difficulties in parenting their child.

A research study, carried out in 2003 in the USA with a group of over fifty surviving twins, reached a similar conclusion: “…….. almost unanimously the cry was to have this issue be openly talked about, right from the beginning.  The survivors fervently gave suggestions and advice: Give information truthfully, and allow feelings to be expressed.  Encourage openness of communication.  Educate the medical profession.  Teach the parents how to deal with the survivor; educate the public that this lost twin is a real force.” 

The loss of one twin at birth is devastating for the parents. Furthermore, twin pregnancies are increasingly the result of lengthy, laborious and costly fertility treatments. Earlier on in the pregnancy, there is still a sense of loss.  Many parents discover early on that they are expecting twins or more.  They get to know each baby very well.
 After birth, because of the realities of caring for one or more survivors, parents are typically unable to grieve properly.  In the case of MZ (identical) twins, the memory of the lost twin is kept alive in the person of the survivor.

Support for grieving parents of twins
Parents badly need support in their grief but it is only in the last forty years or so that such support has been provided.  If you are a womb twin survivor born forty years ago or more, then your parents were probably left alone and unsupported after the loss of your twin.

The Center for Loss in Multiple Birth (CLIMB)
Jean Kollantai lost one of her twins at birth.  She resolved that thereafter no parent would ever have to survive such a tragedy unsupported.  She once said that her introduction to parenthood was holding two full-term babies where one was alive and one was dead. She created CLIMB in 1998 as a local support network with excellent information.  There are now branches all over the world. 

Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Support (SANDS)  
In the UK in 1975 two parents with stillborn children decided to do something about the fact that most parents were not allowed to see or hold their babies and they were not told where their babies were buried.  If you are the parent of a stillborn twin, born in the UK before 1984 it was probably normal practice to whisk the baby away, sight unseen.  Today in the UK there is SANDS, founded in 1984 as a charity supporting parents bereaved by the loss of one or more babies, at any time from the second trimester until around birth.  They produce leaflets suggesting best practice for professionals involved with stillbirth.

Good information
The Twins and Multiple Births Association (TAMBA) was created in the UK in 1978. They supply information to parents with twins or multiples.  They have a bereavement support group for parents who had a twin or multiple pregnancy and one or more babies died. 
    There is an increasing amount of information now generally available for parents of stillborn babies, including parents of womb twin survivors.    One good example is the material written by Elizabeth Pector, a medical doctor and the parent of a sole surviving twin.  She has created a web site with resources for parents and has written extensively on the subject. 

Memorials   
Today after the stillbirth or neontal death of one twin, parents are offered the chance to hold their dead child, take a photograph and carefully keep some mementoes of the baby.  This can be helpful to the parents and the surviving twin. 
    There are now some printed resources to help chaplains and others to create Christian services of prayer and memorial for babies who have died during pregnancy or around birth. It is also considered suitable for the siblings of the baby to attend the funeral or memorial service. It is also their loss.  

Death in the womb - a real loss   
If it has been hard to obtain public recognition for a stillborn baby, it even harder for the public to recognize the death of a baby in the womb as a real loss for the parents.  The very idea of grieving for a tiny, miscarried baby has been considered unreasonable by some professionals, who have been concerned that parents and others may magnify miscarriage into a “tragedy.” Nonetheless, it is now clear how important it is for professionals to keep parents informed when a baby dies in the womb and take account of their feelings of loss.
    The same imperative applies to providing full information to the surviving twins.  They must and should be told, in the kindest way possible.  The knowledge that one was once a twin is a very important piece of personal information. Every womb twin survivor has a right to know their origins as one of a twin pair or multiple group but it is very hard to talk about.

Order your advance copy today

My baby's womb twin died - should I worry?

This new information about womb twin survivors is  helping womb twin survivors to come to terms with their loss. " I always thought I was just weird", says Emma,  whose twin was lost in a miscarriage at 13 weeks of pregnancy. " I am so glad I found this website. Now I know I am quite normal. its a great feeling." 

However, there is a darker side to this story: as the psychological difficulties that womb twin survivors face are being more widely discussed, and all kinds of theories are being aired, some parents are beginning to worry. 

Anna wrote to me: "Simon, my 3 year old is a surviving twin. When the placenta came out the doctor found a dead identical twin.  I was recently told that there have been studies done that show some cases of the living child taking on the dead one's personality.  My son is like two people, one way one minute and completely different the next.  I want to know if this is something I need to worry about." 

Should parents worry if their child is a womb twin survivor?

It is now known from several studies that many surviving twins become distressed at some point in life, often in adolescence, but also some surviving twins are not at all distressed.  Researchers have yet to understand why this is. It seem that the loss of a fraternal twin is less traumatic than the loss of an identical twin. The deep bond between twins, forged in the womb is strongest between identical twins and the identical womb twin survivors do seem to be the most likely to be distressed by their pre-birth experience.

What can parents do for  womb twin survivors?

There is a lot that parents can do: research seems to indicate that if an individual knows for sure from the beginning that they once had a twin, that does became part of who they are. Then they understand their feelings better if they do get upset at any time. They can know they are responding perfectly normally to the genuine loss of their "other half".   A loving family and lots of encouragement and love seems to help a great deal, so in many cases a surviving twin will grow up with little more than a tendency to moodiness.

The loss of a twin, like any major event taking place during pregnancy, is worth keeping in mind as a potential effect (either positive and negative) on  your child's development as an individual.  The science of pre-birth psychology  is now well established and we can be sure that our time in the womb does much to shape our personality in born life.  Womb twin  survivors are a particularly interesting case in point.

        

Best practice for parents with a wombtwin survivor in the family 

• Tell your child about their twin and tell them early in life
• Keep  yourself well informed about the medical details of that particular pregnancy, so you will be able to answer questions as they arise, at various stages of your child's life.
• Keep informed about the potential psychological effects of pre-birth twin loss so you can notice any problems arising
• Make contact with other parents of womb twin survivors for mutual support and good information. 
• Create some kind of physical proof of your child's lost twin: a statue, soft toy or plant in the garden etc. as a focus for your child's feelings of sadness or loss, should any such feelings arise.
• Validate your own child's feelings in the face of public scepticism that womb twin survivors truly do feel a sense of something missing - however hard it is for you to believe that!
• Love, accept and encourage your child,  as you would any of your other children.
• The fact that wombtwin survivors are different can be celebrated as a special gift, for they are often very sensitive and empathetic.

The grief of the parent of a "vanishing twin" survivor

Two fraternal twins dance their twin bond into a beautiful and moving interaction. Not a dry eye in the house!

Watch it dry-eyed if you can!

A "Vanishing twin" pregnancy: should I tell my child?

Lucy and Jack, after several years of IVF treatment, were delighted to find they were expecting twins. A scan at eight weeks showed two sacs, each with a tiny fetus, but a few weeks later there was only one baby left alive: the other sac was empty. Lucy went onto the Internet to find out more about vanishing twins and found my site at wombtwin.com. She emailed me the next day,  “It seems that the remaining twin may have some psychological problems: what do I tell my child?”

Then I heard from Margaret. Like Jane she had noticed a little spotting in the early weeks of her first pregnancy - which is a sign of a vanished twin. Her daughter Elinor, now aged six, was born at thirty-six weeks. She was small but very strong. She is left-handed.

“She has always been very mature for her age,” Margaret told me. “She has always been very nurturing with her two younger sisters. She gets very frightened when she hears loud noises. She tends to be reserved and somewhat clingy. Sometimes when she cries, she says that no one loves her and no one understands her.  Since she started school I have noticed that she often talks to herself, as if she is in her own little world.  Then today she asked me where her sister was!  I was speechless. I didn’t know what to say.”

My research with hundreds of womb twin survivors from all around the world is beginning to show us that womb twin survivors are often sensitive, caring people. They are so sensitive to others that they feel as others do. This means they make wonderful therapists and nurses. 

They can become distressed at some point about the loss of their twin but not all of them do.  If they know for sure that they once had a twin, it simply becomes part of who they are.  If they know they were once a twin then, when they feel sad or lonely they can know they are are responding perfectly normally. After all, they did lose their "other half."   For this reason, if your child is a womb twin survivor, it is best to make this clear as soon as you can.  Research has shown that it is helpful to tell your child, as soon as possible and in the calmest and most natural way, the truth of what happened to their twin.

It is important for both parents to be in agreement on this. Sadly, Alice, who is now 35 years old was pregnant with her son Jason when doctors detected two sacs in the eighth week and later on there was only one. “Jason has always been complaining about not being meant to live and missing his brother,” says Alice, “ but my husband thinks this can't be a suitable explanation. I feel there is no way I can talk about those things without being labelled crazy myself or hurting my child.” As a result, Jason, now aged ten, has not yet been told about his twin.

It is normal for a lone twin to have feelings of loneliness, emptiness and sorrow and that goes for womb twin survivors too. If you have had a twin pregnancy that ended up with one baby then you have a womb twin survivor in the family. Rather than leave your child with unexplained feelings, tell him or her about the lost twin - make it real.

Tell them early in life, and make sure you are well informed about the details of  your pregnancy, because you may find that as they grow up they will want to know more and more about what happened.      

It can help everyone if you find other parents of womb twin survivors and team up for mutual support. Not everyone will believe that the loss of a co-twin so early in life can leave an impression. Validate your own child's feelings in the face of public scepticism, and they will never complain that "no one understands how they feel."

Great work in Canada

Lynda Haddon is doing great work with the parents of multiples in Canada. see her blog here.  She has a discussion board for parents and she is not afraid to bring up the possibility that the loss of their twin or multiple can have an effect on the surviving twin or multiple.  What a different story from the twins and multiple births association here in Britain - When I told them of my work they didn't want to know - they said:" If our pregnant women heard about this, they would freak out!" and that was the end of that discussion.  However that was five years ago now, the idea is much more current and the vanishing twin is  seen  more and more on the ultrasound screens. Maybe I should approach them again and see if their attitude has changed.  After all, my new initiative, just starting, is to reach out to the parents of young womb twin survivors.

Any readers of this blog who live in Canada may wish to make contact with Lynda. Also we have a page on the wombtwin.com website for womb twin survivors around the world and the Canada page is not taken up yet. Anyone intersted in being the contact person for Canada, and maybe also be editor of that page? If you are interested, contact me.

Parents: do they damage their children?

One disturbing aspect of working with wombtwin survivors for me, has been the level of resentment against one or both parents, as if they were responsible for all one's pain and distress and indeed one's psychological problems. Sigmund Freud, not having access to wombtwin theory of course, as little was know about life before birth at that time, assumed that psychological problems were due to sexual abuse. Great, thanks.

However those who came later seem to have looked a little wider and the idea that psychological problems begin in childhood was quickly established and remains central to all psychotherapies, expect of course pre and perinatal psychotherapy, but that's a story for another time.

If one is full of resentment and looking for a place to put it, what better than Mum and Dad? Philip Larkin, ( a wombtwin survivor if ever there was one!) wrote plenty of dark, self-indulgent poetry and blamed his parents for his pain. He wrote the famous : "They F*** oyu up, your Mum and Dad. " see the rest here.

Well I have revised this poem and invite your comments;

Larkin about

They take the rap, your Mum and Dad-
They do not mean to, but they do.
They fill up with the faults you had
And take the blame for love of you.

But they were carried in their turn
By folks with quite a different brain,
And half the time tried to be firm
And half the time took on your pain.

Child hands on misery to Mum
And lets Dad carry all the shit.
Then he or she is innocent:
And that's about the size of it.

Is YOUR child a wombtwin survivor?

A wombtwin survivor is the sole survivor of a twin or multiple pregnancy. That means a pregnancy begins with two babies but ends up with just one. The twin may die at any stage of the pregnancy even up to the time of birth. That includes what they call a "vanishing twin" pregnancy.

As the psychological difficulties that wombtwin survivors face are being more widely discussed, and all kinds of theories are being aired, some parents are beginning to worry.

Anna wrote to me: "Simon, my 3 year old, is a surviving twin. When the placenta came out the doctor found a dead identical twin. I was recently told that there have been studies done that show some cases of the living child taking on the dead one's personality. My son is like two people, one way one minute and completely different the next. I want to know if this is something I need to worry about."

Should parents worry if their child is a wombtwin survivor?
It is now known from several studies that many surviving twins become distressed at some point in life, often in adolescence, but also some surviving twins are not at all distressed. Researchers have yet to understand why this is. It seem that the loss of a fraternal twin is less traumatic than the loss of an identical twin. The deep bond between twins, forged in the womb is strongest between identical twins and the identical wombtwin survivors do seem to be the most likely to be distressed by their pre-birth experience.

What can parents do for wombtwin survivors?
There is a lot that parents can do: research seems to indicate that if an individual knows for sure from the beginning that they once had a twin, that does became part of who they are. Then they understand their feelings better if they do get upset at any time. They can know they are responding perfectly normally to the genuine loss of their "other half". A loving family and lots of encouragement and love seems to help a great deal, so in many cases a surviving twin will grow up with little more than a tendency to moodiness.

The loss of a twin, like any major event taking place during pregnancy, is worth keeping in mind as a potential effect (either positive and negative) on your child's development as an individual. The science of pre-birth psychology is now well established and we can be sure that our time in the womb does much to shape our personality in born life. Wombtwin survivors are a particularly interesting case in point.

Best practice for parents with a wombtwin survivor in the family

• Tell your child about their twin and tell them early in life
  
  
• Keep yourself well informed about the medical details of that particular pregnancy, so you will be able to answer questions as they arise, at various stages of your child's life.
  
  
• Keep informed about the potential psychological effects of pre-birth twin loss so you can notice any problems arising.
  
  
• Make contact with other parents of wombtwin survivors for mutual support and good information.
  
  
• Create some kind of physical proof of your child's lost twin: a statue, soft toy or plant in the garden etc. as a focus for your child's feelings of sadness or loss, should any such feelings arise.
  
  
• Validate your own child's feelings in the face of public scepticism that wombtwin survivors truly do feel a sense of something missing - however hard it is for you to believe that!
  
  
• Love, accept and encourage your child, as you would any of your other children.
  
  
• The fact that your young wombtwin survivor is "different" can be celebrated as a special gift, for they are often very sensitive, caring and empathetic little people.

Today, a new idea: that children create for themselves the parents they need to keep alive their Dream of the Womb.

This is the idea: ( comments welcomed.)

A child is filled with angry resentment and directs it to one or both parents: “You made me this way!!” The child finds one or both parents inaccessible, rejecting and cold. The child withdraws into a secret, private world where the pain of isolation and emotional neglect is made bearable. Only by complete withdrawal from the parents can the child survive emotionally.

Meanwhile, the parents, faced with their child’s total withdrawal, find their child inaccessible, rejecting and cold. The parents withdraw into their own world and only when they are completely separate from the child is the emotional pain made bearable.

So on both sides of this family divide each party feels the same: rejected, unwanted and unloved. The parents see the child’s coldness towards them and they withdraw, feeling hurt and unloved. The child sees the parents' withdrawal and so the child withdraws still further, feeling hurt and neglected.

The pain that lies between them never leaves, never heals. The child lives in pain and the parents die in pain. The parents take their pain to the grave. For the surviving child, the death of the parents is a relief from this constant, unnamed, family pain.

This is a terrible tragedy. It is a travesty of what families are for: where is unconditional love, forgiveness and reconciliation in this situation?

But wait! Here is the same mother trying to reach her child, who will not meet her eyes, but is withdrawn and evidently in pain.

The child is saying: “What is there for me in this family?’
The mother is saying: "There is unconditional love forever, whatever you do and wherever you go.”

Here surely is healing! Here is the answer! Let us pour love on this situation and the family relationships can heal and grow!

But there is to be no healing in this family. Notice the child’s distainful silence and withdrawl. The love remains unacknowledged and the pain un-healed.

“YOU made me this way!’ cries the child, and the parents hold each other and weep.

We are told we must believe this child.

We are told that parents are vital to a child's emotional well-being. We are told that the quality of love between the parents and the child is to be unconditional if it is to enable the child to grow. The social policy of this country is built on a single idea: that family life fosters the growth of children and by fostering family life we help to make better citizens. We are told that emotional intelligence is about empathy and the ability to make good connections with people. We are told that children learn emotional intelligence from their parents.

This is wrong. Parents do not make their children. Parents deal in the best way they can with the children they are given.

Children are born, not made. In our desperate search for explanations for why so many families break down as love dies a silent and painful death, we have been grasping at straws. In a procrustean effort to fit our psychological theories to the facts, we still choose to believe, along with Freud, Winnicott and all the others, that the root of neurosis lies in the primary relationships made in the first vital weeks and months of life. This means what when children withdraw into silence and begin a painful path to self-destruction through eating disorders, addictions, self-harm, unplanned pregnancy, impossible relationships and all the rest, that we can blame the parents.

This is wrong, parents do not make their children. What moulds our children is their life in the womb.

For the surviving identical twin, the primal relationship was not with Mum and Dad, but with their inaccessible, cold and unresponsive other half: their twin. After a brief period of live interaction, one twin begins to die. The twin becomes withdrawn, goes cold and inaccessible and in time goes away completely. This tragedy is being re-enacted in familes all over the world.

Wombtwin survivors create the parents they need to keep their Dream alive.

I wonder: if this was generally understood, could this secret and mysterious pain be healed at last? I do hope so.