Loss of a twin my story

Hi, I’m John, I’m a father of two boys, one of whom is a surviving twin. I’m also an integrative counsellor and musician.

Finding out we were having twins was a big surprise as we weren’t aware of any other twins in either of our families. It turned out that we were expecting boy / girl twins, too, which added to our excitement and joy. The pregnancy was monitored as ‘high risk’ by default, but there were no issues and our consultant was really happy to go ahead with a natural birth.

Sadly, the birth did not go as planned, resulting in an emergency C-section and our daughter being stillborn. We spent 48 hours at Gloucester Royal Hospital under the care of the most amazing maternity team. During that time our daughter was with us in a refrigerated cot; it meant so much to be able to spend time with her before saying goodbye.

Our son is now 12 and he has a brother who is 11. They are both well and happy.

Becoming a parent and grieving the death of a baby at the same time is one of the most heartbreaking and confusing experiences. We were so lucky to receive support from multiple sources during the first few years of navigating our ‘new normal.’ Sharon helped put us in touch with a befriender who had gone through a similar loss. They were the ‘voice from the future,’ somebody who had come out the other side and could speak to us about what life looked like a few years down the line. We talked about how our experience affected us individually, as a couple, how it affected our families and our feelings towards going back to work.

I could see how valuable it was to be able to offer a befriending service to parents going through such a unique kind of loss and I wanted to volunteer as soon as I was able. After a year, I did some training and began befriending other parents who had lost one of a multiple birth. I found it such an enriching and rewarding experience that I eventually decided to train to become a counsellor.

I always saw the time that I dedicated to befriending as a way of ‘repurposing’ the time I would never get with my daughter. It was my way of being available to someone else in a way that I couldn’t be for her.

As part of my counselling training, I realised that the loss of our daughter had become the centre of a ‘constellation of grief’ in my life; it pulled into it all the other losses I had gone through, and my fear was that I would be dishonouring my daughter if I let my grief for her slip out of view. With that in mind, I did a lot of work on finding a way for my grief as a father to live in balance alongside all of my other thoughts and feelings. It was about becoming a bereaved parent AND a parent to two boys, making space for a broader self-identity.

I now work with Footprints as a supervisor and group facilitator using skills that I have gained as part of my own journey of growth after loss.

If you are walking this path, please know you don’t have to walk it alone. Reach out, share your story or simply let us know you are here. Together we can hold space for each other and keep our babies’ memories alive with love.

Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Linkedin, TikTok, to find comfort, join our community, read shared stories or offer a few words of comfort.