A Meeting Place for Early loss twins

This is really my twin's Enjy's place, not mine. S/He does not have any other place in this world. S/He was miscarried at age four months in the womb. We were twins and made to be together for years and we were torn apart within seconds. This is the place where I go to talk to him/her and about him/her. Anyone who has lost a twin in utero or very early is very welcome here to read and share.
Anjy

Wednesday, May 16, 2018

This much I know to be true...

Some years ago I came upon an entry in a forum about early twin loss. A member told how she went to a meeting and one of the attending guys said "other than you I know for sure I had a twin sisterr. She died at our birth." The author of the post wrote how she reacted. "I also know it for sure."
Still, all her surety came from family constellation and kinesiology, and I can name more people than I have fingers and toes who would NOT call that "knowing for sure".
There is a fair number of things we early loss twins can do to gain confirmation that our twins really existed and I did most of them.

1. Medical confirmation. Blessed are those who were conceived after the advent of ultrasound, they will have pictures of their twins. Not very clear pictures. Possibly only two black spots on a grey surface, but pictures all the same. If your mother remembers details about her pregnancy and delivery, more may surface. Bleeding through the pregnancy. Talk of two possible heartbeats. Unusual gain of weight. Heavy or early child movement. An unusually big placenta. Tissue in the womb. Signs on the placenta that point to anther umbilical cord originally attached to it. An actual fetus papyracaeus. There are differing opinions as to whether dermoid cysts or teratomas refer to a vanished twin or are rather pluripotent cells going haywire early on. Double organs like four kidneys or organs of both sexes in one individual. More than five toes or fingers. Obvious chimerism. Chimerism proven through DNA tests. A fetu in fetu (a fully developed embryo found in a live individual).

2. Emotional confirmation. When Althea Hayton started her Wombtwin Suvivor project she developed a questionnaire that listed several emotional  traits supposed to point towards in utero twin loss. Among them are ovious ones - buying two of things, being unable to be alone, being averse to people approaching from one side - and less obvious ones - feeling alone in a crowd, looking for something without knowing what it might be, yearning for a soulmate - things everyone may experience once or often in live. Emotional residues of in utero twin loss may be immensely powerful but it's difficult to apply them to twin loss directly. They may also point to other traumatic experiences like being separated from the mother shortly after birth for a stay in the NICU, or traumatic events in early childhood.

3. Spiritual confirmation. Many early loss twins set great store by that. Do kinesiological muscle test. Meet a psychic. Family constellation. Hypnosis. Ask a pendulum or a crystal ball. There is literally no limit to spiritual technics. Like with emotional confirmation there are other suspects present which can not always be clearly distinguished from a lost twin. Earlier reincarnations. Trauma transferred over generations. Twin-flames rather than an actual twin... Depending on the spiritual healer's preferations there is literally no limit to possible explanations, which can be frustrating if you just wanted to have your twin confirmed.

Like I said, I did most of those. I pressed my mother for the last drop of information. Like a lemon. She tried to produce as much as possible but given the complicated nature of our relationship I can't even be sure if she didn't produce memories just to satisfy my expectations. Fact is, I was her first child and much has happened since.
She suffered from nausea for most of the pregnancy. Only in month 8 did she start to feel better.
(A twin pregnancy produces much more HCG, the hormone suspected to cause pregnancy sickness).
There was talk of two heartbeats at some time (no ultrasound in 1963).
She "lost a lump" on the toilet in winter 1963, thought "that looks like a tiny arm" and flushed the toilet.
She was hospitalised in March 1963 for suspected preecclampsia, but doesn't remember much of that. When she was discharged her cervix was partly opened and she was told to take it easy but not ordered to bed-rest.
She had very heavy child movement. 
I took 38 hours to be delivered.
The placenta was so huge the midwife said it "would have suited two".
She had to go back to hospital to have a D&C shortly after delivery.
I was a difficult child hard to comfort.

I never really bonded with anyone, not even - or least of all - my mother.
I resented touch from an early age on, before I could walk.
I never knew how to play with other children.
I chose objects to talk to ( a hand broom, later toys).
When my younger sister was born - I was 3 - I said "I don't want her, I want another brother." I had a brother 14 months younger than me.
I talked to someone nobody could see, but it wasn't an imaginary friend.
I often said "we" when I talked about myself.
I was - and am - in striking dissociation with my own body. I sometimes don't know where my arms and legs are.
I never had friends but was always in dialogue with someone invisible.
I learned to read very early (age 5) and prefered books about brothers.
I wrote stories about brothers.
A did a striking water-clour drawing at age 4 or five of two identical girls rope skipping. One has both feet in the air, her features are slightly blurred and she is laughing fit to burst. The other one has one foot on the ground. Her expression is more sober and her features are more clear. Her skirt has black stripes which make it look more grounded.
As a young child I used to dream I was somewhere I was not supposed to be and had to look for a way out. I always feel I'm in the wrong place or just plain wrong.
I never developed trust in life.
I have flash-backs which point to an in utero trauma like cord entangling or being in the same amniotic fluid with a mazerating dead fetus.
...

My mother asked a psychic who told her I had had a twin sister with whom I was still very closely bonded.
Another psychic told me I did not have a twin, but was a reincarnated witch from the middle ages.
Another psychic told me I had had a twin sister who was long gone.
A kinesiologist told me I had had a twin sister and a twin brother. Triplets.
I once had a very weird dream about me and another one sitting on a window shelf and tumbling down to different directions, I to safety, my twin to death. I woke up with a piercing headache, fell asleep again and had exactly the same dream again. This happened only once in my life (so far).
I always had the feeling of a presence with me I talked to. When I became a Christian, I thought "it must be Jesus or my Guardian Angel" and I was sincerely frustrated when this thought didn't satisfie me at all.

And that's it. I have tried for several years to find out more, but there is a limit to accessible information. I have begun to accept I will not find out more by going through everything I know again and again.

This much I know to be true, and confirmation will not come from the outside. Neither my mother nor assorted psychics will provide the kind of confirmation I so long to receive. Confirmation can only come from the one person who was there:I  myself. My body, my senses, my soul - they are the sources I can turn to again and again and will gain - step by step - more information about what I already know: I had a twin who died before birth.