We were supposed to be welcoming twins. This is a reflection on the quiet and personal experience of the loss of a twin during pregnancy.
That sentence lands differently when it’s spoken aloud, and even more strangely when it’s only whispered to yourself. We are still expecting a child this summer, growing strong and steady, but we weren’t always expecting just one.
When we found out my wife was pregnant, we were filled with cautious hope. This wasn’t a pregnancy we took for granted. After our third child, I had a vasectomy. Still, both my wife and I felt, quietly and separately, that our family wasn’t quite complete. So I had the procedure reversed. The surgeon was excited by the results, “off the charts” he said, and even then, it took nearly a year for the pregnancy to begin.
We had agreed that if she wasn’t pregnant by the time she turned 41, we’d close that chapter. But just before the window closed, a new one opened.
It wasn’t until our first ultrasound that we learned there had been twins. One heartbeat filled the room. The other did not. The technician took longer to get the proper angles and at times looked slightly confused. Once we received the results back through the patient portal I understood why. There in the report it said that we had twins. It also said “Twin A suffered intrauterine demise” and “Twin A has growth consistent with approximately 7 weeks.” It was a moment that added both awe and quiet ache to what was already a sacred experience.
We didn’t know whether they were identical or fraternal. We didn’t know what they would have become. But for a brief time, there were two. That truth settled in my chest and hasn’t left.
We are still expecting a baby. We are still planning, preparing, celebrating. There is joy. But in the midst of that joy, I carry a quieter awareness. Not a sadness that overtakes, but a presence that lingers. A recognition that something began and ended before we even had time to understand it.
I haven’t spoken about it much. My wife is in the middle of a physically demanding pregnancy, and I’ve chosen not to place my reflections into her hands. That choice has left me with a stillness that I’m only now beginning to explore.
This isn’t a tragedy. It’s a quiet departure. A moment that began as a twin pregnancy, marked by the loss of a twin during pregnancy, and now continues with one child still growing. A moment of possibility that passed through us without fanfare. A second presence that never needed a name to be real.
Others have written about vanishing twin syndrome and the emotional complexities it can carry. It’s not something people often talk about, but when they do, it becomes clear that many parents quietly hold this kind of ambiguous grief.
I don’t know how this will shape the child who remains. Maybe they’ll sense it one day. Maybe not. Either way, I will remember. That for a short time, there were two hearts, and now there is one.
