I’ve looked up Vanishing Twin Syndrome, and almost every article I have seen said that VTS typically only happens during the first trimester of the pregnancy.
But here’s the catch: My mom didn’t realize or know she was pregnant with me until 7 months into the pregnancy. And when she found out, the ultrasounds did show two babies. Me and my twin.
If Vanishing Twin Syndrome usually only occurs during the 1st trimester, is there a reason why it can happen so late during the pregnancy, as in the case with my mom and my twin? Or is there technically another name for this specific situation?
Your mom said the doctor told her the ultrasound showed “two babies” but I had an ultrasound at 5 weeks and they looked at the tiny embryonic speck and said, “there’s the baby!” In fact no babies are shown in ultrasounds, only fetuses. But my point was, they may have seen one 7-month fetus and one little shriveled thing and said “there’s two babies.”
I guess it’s also possible she brought two babies to term, made a “Sophie’s Choice” to give one up for adoption, and didn’t want you to be heartbroken or afraid of being given away too. And since other people had heard about her being pregnant with twins, she gave you a story you could accept as a child.
And another possibility is that the doctor gave her anesthesia or rohypnol or something and took the twin to put up for adoption, telling her it was absorbed. She’d know she had given birth but not remember it was twice. It’s terrible but not unheard of.
You could ask her, if you feel you’re both adult enough now to handle the emotional implications of all the possible explanations. Remember that you can still trust her love no matter what, but she might not know the whole truth and/or might be ashamed to admit it.
Lol my mom used to tell me how doctors / medical staff in China were sketchy af and sometimes they trafficked children… a problem fueled by One Child Policy and fertility issues and society’s obsessive desire to have children and especially a “male heir” to “carry on the bloodline”, so my mom told me stories about how “oh X person in Y province found that his parents arent his real parents and the hospital trafficked him and sold him…”
Idk why mom keep telling me these stories, terrified me as a kid…
Sometimes I wonder if I am even the real biological child of my parents… 🤔
Who is Sophie?
Meryl Streep movie, she could save only one child from the Nazis (or they’d have killed both, the cruelty was the point) and the guilt and trauma stays with her throughout her life.
I was implying that if your mom had to give up one twin for adoption it might still be a painful thing she doesn’t want to talk about.
She didn’t give up the twin, the twin died.
It’s a reference to a movie of the same name.
The gist is that at one point, Sophie is forced to choose which of her children die.