What to expect when you're expecting (222 page)

The parent who loses one twin (or more babies, in the case of triplets or quads) faces celebrating a birth (or births) and mourning a death (or deaths) at the same time. If this happens, you may feel too conflicted to either mourn your lost child or enjoy your living one—both vitally important processes. Understanding why you feel the way you do may help you better cope with your feelings, which may include all or just some of these:

You may feel heartbroken. You’ve lost a baby, and the fact that you have another doesn’t minimize your loss. Realize that you’re entitled to mourn the baby you’ve lost, even as you’re celebrating your other baby’s birth. In fact, mourning that loss is an important part of the healing process. Taking the steps for grieving parents described in the previous section can help you more easily accept your baby’s death as a reality.

Why?

The painful question “Why?” may never be answered. But it may be helpful to attach some reality to the tragedy by learning about the physical causes of the death of a fetus or newborn. Often, the baby looks perfectly normal, and the only way to uncover the cause of death is to carefully examine the history of the pregnancy and do a complete examination of the fetus or baby. If the fetus died in utero or was stillborn, pathological examination of the placenta by an expert pathologist is also important. Knowing what happened (and this isn’t always possible to determine) doesn’t really tell you why it happened to you and your baby, but it helps bring closure to the event, and it will help you prepare for a future pregnancy.

You may be happy, too, but ambivalent about showing it. It may seem somehow inappropriate to be excited about the arrival of your surviving baby or even disloyal to the one who didn’t live. That’s a natural feeling but one you’ll need to try to let go of. Loving and nurturing the sibling is a wonderful way of honoring your lost baby—besides, it’s essential to your living baby’s well-being.

You may want to celebrate, but don’t know if it’s okay to. A new baby is always something to celebrate, even when the happy news comes with sadness. If you’re uncomfortable holding a baby-welcoming event without acknowledging your loss, consider first holding a memorial ceremony or farewell for the baby who has passed away.

Pregnancy Reduction

Sometimes an ultrasound reveals that one (or more) of the fetuses in a multiple pregnancy can’t survive or is so severely malformed that the chances of survival outside the womb are minimal—and worse yet, that the ailing fetus may be endangering your other healthy one(s). Or there are so many fetuses that there is a significant risk to the mother and all her babies. In such cases, your practitioner may recommend a pregnancy reduction. Contemplating this procedure can be agonizing—it may seem like sacrificing one child to protect another—and may leave you plagued with guilt, confusion, and conflicted feelings. You may come to your decision of whether to proceed (or not proceed) easily, or it may be an excruciating decision-making process.

There may be no easy answers, and there are definitely no perfect options, but you’ll want to do whatever you can to make peace with the decision you end up making. Review the situation with your practitioner, and seek a second opinion, or third, or fourth, until you’re as confident as you can be about your choice. You can also ask your practitioner to put you in touch with someone from the bioethics staff of the hospital (if that’s available). You may want to share your feelings with close friends, or you may want to keep this personal decision private. If religion plays an important role in your life, you’ll probably want to look to spiritual guidance. Once you make your decision, try not to second-guess: Accept that it’s the best decision you can make under the difficult circumstances. Also try not to burden yourself with guilt, no matter what you choose. Because none of this is your fault, there’s no reason to feel guilty about it.

If you end up undergoing pregnancy reduction, you may expect to experience the same grief as any parent who has lost one or more babies.

You may view your baby’s death as punishment, perhaps because you really weren’t sure you wanted or could handle being the parent of multiples or because you wanted a girl more than you wanted a boy (or vice versa). Though this kind of guilt is common among parents who experience a pregnancy loss of any kind, it’s completely unwarranted. Nothing you did—or thought or imagined or wished for—could have caused the loss.

You may feel disappointed that you won’t be a parent of multiples. It’s normal to be sad over the loss of this excitement, especially if you’ve been imagining and planning for the arrival of multiples for months. You may even feel twinges of regret when seeing sets of multiples. Don’t feel guilty about feeling that way; it’s completely understandable.

You may be afraid that explaining your situation to family and friends will be awkward and difficult, especially if they’ve been eagerly awaiting the twins. To make facing the world a little easier, enlist a friend or close relative to spread the word so you won’t have to. In the first few weeks, try to take someone with you when you go out with your baby, so they can anticipate and answer the inevitable—and possibly painful—questions.

You may have trouble handling the reactions and comments of family and friends. In trying to help, friends and family may overdo the excitement when welcoming your living child, without acknowledging the one you’ve lost. Or they may urge you to forget your lost baby and appreciate your living one. As well intentioned as their actions and words may be, they can hurt and upset you. So don’t hesitate to tell people—especially the ones who are closest to you—how you feel. Let them know that you need to grieve for what you have lost as well as celebrate the new arrival.

You may feel too depressed over your loss to care for your new baby—or, if you’re still pregnant, to care for your baby by taking the best possible care of yourself. Don’t beat yourself up over your unhappy or conflicted feelings. They’re normal, and completely understandable. But do make sure that you get the help you need so you can start meeting your baby’s needs—both physical and emotional. Support groups may help, and so can counseling.