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S1 E9 – Angel Babies
ANGEL BABIES
From joy to heartbreak.
On episode Nine, of Double Happiness Multiplied, we honour the families who sadly didn’t get to take one or more of their babies’ home.
Alexa Bigwarfe shares her story of grief following the loss of one of her twins, due to twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome.
Psychologist Dr Monique Robinson talks about the importance of grieving and reaching out and speaking to others who have experienced the loss of a multiple.
And, Joanne Beedie tells us of her devastation at being told the heart of one of her twins had stopped at just 21-weeks’ gestation.
They’re known as Angel Babies. They’re the precious souls who didn’t make it into the world alive, or they were only here long enough to exhale a few short breaths of love before passing away.
The sad reality of multiple births is that compared with singletons, babies from multiple pregnancies have a substantially higher rate of perinatal death. This higher rate of loss is largely due to preterm birth.
It’s not uncommon for one or two babies from a multiple pregnancy to die Inutero and the more embryos you have the more likely you are to have a loss.
The emotional pain and the strain on the family unit after losing one or more babies from a multiple pregnancy is undeniably excruciating.
Alexa Bigwarfe was has lived this very reality. She was diagnosed with twin-to-twin-transfusion syndrome when she was 20-weeks’ pregnant with her identical twin girls. By the time the condition was detected, the disease had progressed to stage 3, which made treatment options less effective.
“There was emotion overload just all the time, and I wanted to be happy and I wanted to have faith and believe, and I still believed when they were both born and they were both alive, I still believed the medical system was going to fix her, that it was still going to be okay,”
“So, when they told us it was time to turn off the machines, I didn’t believe it,” says Alexa
Alexa explains how difficult it was to try and grieve one child while she had another one who was still trying to survive. She says the hardest part was trying to bond with her surviving twin.
“It was really difficult to bond with her for multiple reasons, I didn’t even get to hold her until she was about a week old, and then I was scared of bonding with her because I wasn’t sure that she was going to live either,” admits Alexa.
Empty arms
Alexa explains that she understood the pain that comes with the loss of a baby but she just couldn’t understand the whole empty arms concept because her arms weren’t empty.
“So, then I would feel guilt that I felt so sad because at least I had one,”
“And I had multiple people tell me at least one came home,”
“Just don’t say that, don’t say that to somebody who’s lost one of their twins,” she says.
Coming up to the anniversary of the birth of her twins, and then the passing two days later of one of the babies, Alexa had time to reflect on what is and what could have been.
“To be honest with you, if she had survived in the state that she was in, our lives would have been really difficult,”
“So, in some ways, I can look at it as a blessing that she was released from this world because when we talked to the cardio specialists they told us that at a minimum she would have to go through three, potentially four open heart surgeries through her life,”
“We didn’t know what level of brain damage she had suffered due to the fluid on her brain, her lungs were all kinds of underdeveloped because of all the fluid that had grown in her abdomen, just all kinds of things,” explains Alexa.
Grieving
Grieving is a natural process following a loss, however, Alexa admits that with two small children who needed her, and a baby still fighting for her life in hospital, there simply wasn’t time.
“I never had that opportunity to spend two-or-three days i...
View all episodes
ANGEL BABIES
From joy to heartbreak.
On episode Nine, of Double Happiness Multiplied, we honour the families who sadly didn’t get to take one or more of their babies’ home.
Alexa Bigwarfe shares her story of grief following the loss of one of her twins, due to twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome.
Psychologist Dr Monique Robinson talks about the importance of grieving and reaching out and speaking to others who have experienced the loss of a multiple.
And, Joanne Beedie tells us of her devastation at being told the heart of one of her twins had stopped at just 21-weeks’ gestation.
They’re known as Angel Babies. They’re the precious souls who didn’t make it into the world alive, or they were only here long enough to exhale a few short breaths of love before passing away.
The sad reality of multiple births is that compared with singletons, babies from multiple pregnancies have a substantially higher rate of perinatal death. This higher rate of loss is largely due to preterm birth.
It’s not uncommon for one or two babies from a multiple pregnancy to die Inutero and the more embryos you have the more likely you are to have a loss.
The emotional pain and the strain on the family unit after losing one or more babies from a multiple pregnancy is undeniably excruciating.
Alexa Bigwarfe was has lived this very reality. She was diagnosed with twin-to-twin-transfusion syndrome when she was 20-weeks’ pregnant with her identical twin girls. By the time the condition was detected, the disease had progressed to stage 3, which made treatment options less effective.
“There was emotion overload just all the time, and I wanted to be happy and I wanted to have faith and believe, and I still believed when they were both born and they were both alive, I still believed the medical system was going to fix her, that it was still going to be okay,”
“So, when they told us it was time to turn off the machines, I didn’t believe it,” says Alexa
Alexa explains how difficult it was to try and grieve one child while she had another one who was still trying to survive. She says the hardest part was trying to bond with her surviving twin.
“It was really difficult to bond with her for multiple reasons, I didn’t even get to hold her until she was about a week old, and then I was scared of bonding with her because I wasn’t sure that she was going to live either,” admits Alexa.
Empty arms
Alexa explains that she understood the pain that comes with the loss of a baby but she just couldn’t understand the whole empty arms concept because her arms weren’t empty.
“So, then I would feel guilt that I felt so sad because at least I had one,”
“And I had multiple people tell me at least one came home,”
“Just don’t say that, don’t say that to somebody who’s lost one of their twins,” she says.
Coming up to the anniversary of the birth of her twins, and then the passing two days later of one of the babies, Alexa had time to reflect on what is and what could have been.
“To be honest with you, if she had survived in the state that she was in, our lives would have been really difficult,”
“So, in some ways, I can look at it as a blessing that she was released from this world because when we talked to the cardio specialists they told us that at a minimum she would have to go through three, potentially four open heart surgeries through her life,”
“We didn’t know what level of brain damage she had suffered due to the fluid on her brain, her lungs were all kinds of underdeveloped because of all the fluid that had grown in her abdomen, just all kinds of things,” explains Alexa.
Grieving
Grieving is a natural process following a loss, however, Alexa admits that with two small children who needed her, and a baby still fighting for her life in hospital, there simply wasn’t time.
“I never had that opportunity to spend two-or-three days i...