Trigger Warning: This story contains subject matter relating to Vanishing Twin Syndrome.
We had tried just about everything to get pregnant. Meds, IUI, IUI with ultrasounds, etc. We finally decided to do IVF as a last resort. With IVF, we had one shot, it was too expensive to do twice. After all the shots and egg retrievals, we had three viable eggs and so, putting all of our eggs in one basket as the saying goes, we implanted all three.
I was 40 years old, so we knew there was a chance of multiples, but we also knew that the three implanted eggs increased our odds of conceiving at least one. Three weeks later we got the call, pregnant! Six weeks later at the first ultrasound, it was twins!! "Oh crap, I'm 40," I thought. I'm not sure I'm equipped for two babies at the same time.
Eight weeks later, at peace with the idea of twins and at a routine ultrasound appointment, the tech show us the first baby. The wand moves, looking for the second heartbeat. Looking, looking, looking. Nothing.
The other twin stopped growing around nine weeks, and unlike a miscarriage, my body and my daughter just absorbed it over rest of the pregnancy. It was weird to grieve the loss of a baby while still pregnant with its twin sister. There are days that I look at by daughter and wonder if she absorbed the personality of both babies.
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