My twin sister was stillborn – 44 years later, I still miss her

Ingrid Warren on the bond that forms in the womb between twins and why she grieved throughout her childhood for the sister she lost

Your article (‘Just devastating’: the rarely discussed virtual taboo of losing a baby, 19 April) discusses the effects on the family of a stillborn baby, but one group was not mentioned: those who, like me, lose their twin at birth. My sister Diana was stillborn; 44 years later I still miss her. People may say that I never knew her, but I spent nine months or so next to her in the womb – there is no closer bond.

It was not until I was 18 and discovered Joan Woodward’s book The Lone Twin and began talking to other twins who had lost a twin at birth that I began to understand all the ways in which I had been grieving for her throughout my childhood.

We may not consciously remember our twins, but we have a sense of another person there who has now gone. Attachment issues are common. I would ask anyone who parents a child who has lost a twin in this way to be open about it. I was lucky because my parents were open about my sister; I know many who found out by accident and who have struggled with such an important aspect of themselves being hidden from them, as well as a sense of things falling into place.

People from multiple births have a different experience from those who were alone in the womb. I may have lost Diana all that time ago, but I am still a twin.
Ingrid Warren
Oxford

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