I lost my perfectly healthy son somewhere around 26 weeks. Due to a number of complications, his twin sister was delivered 2 days after I received the news of his death. She was of course sent directly to the NICU where she has remained for 71 days and counting. I have never dealt with anything even remotely like this in my life and have become fully aware that I have no idea what I am doing. I just keep telling myself to stay strong for Mia, for my husband and for my family. And for all outward appearances I have been doing just that. My own brain is where the issues are hiding from everyone else.

Every time I look at my beautiful little girl, I think of her brother. I can't help myself. The other day we took pictures of her and her little buddy who has been in the NICU with us the entire time. It was such a cute picture, my Mia leaned up against this cute little boy with her head on his shoulder. Everyone was raving about how precious the picture was and all I felt was anger. Mia should be leaning on her brother, not some stranger. I feel like this anger, these thoughts I have, are going to affect my ability to be a good mother to my living baby. I just don't know what to do...

Welcome to Glow, LP.

I'm so very, very sorry for the loss of your son. I was pregnant this time last year with boy/girl twins as well and learned that we lost my also prefectedly healthy little boy, WIll, at 25 weeks. I was extraordinarily fortunate to stay pregnant with my survivor, Abby, until I delivered them both at 37 weeks.

This is a difficult and dark path to walk...losing a child in the midst of the birth of a live child. It is a muddle of emotions that should not go together: joy and sorrow, hope and devastation, anger and elation. Worst of all...you don't really have a chance to grieve your son b/c you've needed all your energy to focus on the rollercoaster of your daugther's progress.

People will not understand. They will say awful things like "at least you have one baby" as if the loss of you son means nothing. They will not understand the depth of your anger. They will want you to 'move on for the sake of the survivor'. Of course, not all people.

Nearly a year out, I still see the shadow of Will in the life of Abby. Not all the time...but sometimes it strikes me over the head with the swinging force of a pick-axe. Twins, of course, are eveywhere. Sometimes I avoid them at all costs and sometimes I strike up conversations with the unsuspecting parents just to tell them that my daughter is a twin, too. They usually don't know what to say. I guess I don't blame them.

Alexa from 'Flotsam' blog (who also recently published a book called "Half-baked" about losing her son and having a micro-preemie survior daughter...gave me this advice which I run through my head daily: grief is not a betrayal of joy nor joy a betrayal of grief. They both can live...in great contradiction...to those who walk this path.

There is a twinloss support group that has started a private FB page for situations like ours. Please feel free to email me and I will let you know how to join. Email to eve_@yahoo.com

I wrote the email wrong...eve_62025@yahoo.com

LP I am so sorry for the death of your precious son. What an awful experience.... And then NICU... We only did 3 days of NICU before our daughter died, but NICU itself messed with my head big time. It's a parrallel universe I think, a weird place devoid of the passage of time, but where eveything and every baby is so closely watched. So much equipment and yet so much powerlessness.

LP whatever you are doing to survive moment by moment I take my hat off to you. I'm sorry I have no words of wisdom. I am thinking of you though.

LP, I am so very sorry to read of the loss of your son. I hope that Mia continues to do well in the NICU. It must have been very painful to see her snuggled up against her NICU buddy rather than with her twin brother. My heart breaks for you.

I gave birth to twin girls at 23 weeks in 2008. Sadly, one of my daughters died in the NICU when she was three days old. Her twin spent four months in hospital before she came home to us. It was a very difficult time and, looking back, I had no idea what I was doing either. I think that it is completely understandable, you are trying to make your way through two situations that are inherently different, the death of a child and the birth of a child, and which do not often come simultaneously.

I had the same worry, that the grief and anger that I felt would somehow ruin my ability to parent my daughter. I can't pretend that I am the same mother that I would have been if one of my children hadn't died. In some ways I think I am a better parent for having that jolting twist of perspective landed on me before I'd even begun (the twins were my first children).

I can't say it better than Alexa, quoted by Eve above, has already. It is a difficult balancing act at times but grief and joy can co-exist and one is not a betrayal of the other.

Thinking of you, Mia and her twin brother. x

I am so sorry for the loss of your son. I don't have a twin story, but I can relate to your story. I think of my daugher all the time in certain situations. How could you not think like that during that picture? Unfortunately there will be lots of those situations, and many times you will feel alone in your grief, but you aren't. There are many people here who understand how you feel. It is ok to be angry. It is unfair. I have often felt like I wasn't being a good mother to my surviving daughter b/c of my grief, but you have to be gentle with yourself. Somedays will be better than others and that is ok.