--- title: I Lost a Baby to Vanishing Twin Syndrome. No One Knows Why description: Eleanor Barker-White writes about vanishing twin syndrome, when one twin is lost in a miscarriage and the other absorbs the fetal tissue. canonical: https://time.com/6589113/vanishing-twin-syndrome-essay/ author: Eleanor Barker-White article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-02-06T12:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:42:52.517Z article:section: Ideas og:title: I Was Pregnant With Twins. Then One of Them Vanished og:description: "How was it possible that five weeks later one of my children had disappeared?" og:url: https://time.com/6589113/vanishing-twin-syndrome-essay/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt322374463790f84b/698a48370116826e57984462/pregnancy-ultrasound.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2400 og:image:height: 1350 og:image:alt: Pregnancy ultrasound scan og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: I Was Pregnant With Twins. Then One of Them Vanished twitter:description: "How was it possible that five weeks later one of my children had disappeared?" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt322374463790f84b/698a48370116826e57984462/pregnancy-ultrasound.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # I Was Pregnant With Twins. Then One of Them Vanished > Sponsored content. 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A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=96e6cea8-53f0-4cbf-9690-3a96561e3c84&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: New Questions About IVF Testing [Watch (HLS stream): New Questions About IVF Testing](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/DhDUUUt7.m3u8) (4:51)  _Published 2022-09-07. Each year, tens of thousands of people in the U.S. try to conceive using in vitro fertilization (IVF), a process through which eggs are fertilized in a lab, then transferred to the patient's uterus. Even though IVF has become relatively common, it’s not a sure bet._ by [Eleanor Barker-White](https://time.com/author/eleanor-barker-white/) ## Eleanor Barker-White Feb 6, 2024 12:00 PM UTC  MODEL RELEASED. Pregnancy ultrasound scan. MODEL RELEASED. Pregnancy ultrasound scan. Getty Images/Science Photo Library by [Eleanor Barker-White](https://time.com/author/eleanor-barker-white/) ## Eleanor Barker-White Feb 6, 2024 12:00 PM UTC “It’s vanished,” the sonographer said. He had checked the ultrasound several times and was certain of his assessment. My husband and I craned forward to examine the ghostly shadows on the screen, the black hollows, like eyes, surrounded by swathes of gray. It felt like we were watching a film noir. The jelly felt cold on my stomach. “What do you mean_, vanished_?” Last time I had lain in this room, at my eight-week scan, there had been two bean-shaped babies on the scan, two heartbeats inside me, pulsing with life. I had undergone a grueling course of hormone injections as part of our IVF cycle, and after an anxious wait, we were shocked and thrilled to be told not only had it been successful, but we were expecting twins. We’d gone home and celebrated. Twins! We talked endlessly about the practicalities and dynamics: could we afford two? Could we manage two? How would breastfeeding work? Did we have room? It didn’t matter; we’d be fine, we would manage. In maternity stores, I marveled at the softness of baby suits, imagining my babies inside them, their tiny faces smiling up at me, side by side. My husband and I tested out double strollers, laughing as we crashed into store displays, vowing that we wouldn’t be as incompetent when our twins arrived. Perhaps somewhat naively, we developed a romantic vision of the challenges that lay ahead.  Both twins in utero between eight and nine weeks gestation Courtesy of Eleanor Barker-White **Read More:** [_Why There's So Much Pregnancy Trauma on TV and Podcasts Right Now_](https://time.com/6315514/birth-and-trauma-on-tv/) How was it possible that five weeks later one of my children had disappeared? I’d had no bleeding, no cramping, no symptoms to suggest anything had failed. “It’s called vanishing twin syndrome,” the sonographer said. “One twin becomes absorbed by the other.” Vanishing twin syndrome. It sounds like a magic trick, a sleight of hand. In many ways, it is: here, you have two babies, two beating hearts, thrumming away with life, and the next time you look, one is missing. Vanished. Not a trace remains. ### More From TIME I was desperate for information, but while I knew what had happened–one twin had been lost in a miscarriage, and the other had absorbed the fetal tissue–nobody could tell me _why_. There was no advice leaflet or support group for VTS, and internet articles were clinical, sparse on detail. Medical professionals dismissed the syndrome as “one of those things.” There is nothing that can be done to prevent or treat the condition. Whispers between similar grief-stricken, guilt-ridden parents on parenting and fertility forums showed that it was a relatively common phenomenon, yet the syndrome was still shrouded in mystery. From the little information I could find online, I learned that between [15% and 35% of twin pregnancies are reduced to a single fetus due to VTS](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1521693422000487P), with the lost twin usually reabsorbed. A friend who had suffered a miscarriage said I was “lucky,” and I didn’t know how to respond because she was right–I still had one. But this only compounded my conflicting emotions of shame and fear. Although outcomes for the surviving twin are generally good, particularly if the loss of the vanishing twin occurs in the first trimester, little research has been done involving the mental-health effects of VTS on the birth parents or the surviving sibling. I became obsessed with prodding my stomach to check the movements of the remaining twin, terrified of suffering complications or another loss. At the same time, I felt guilty for “failing” the lost twin. I needed to grieve, but as the weeks went by, obstetricians treated me as though I’d only ever borne one child; the missing twin was never mentioned again. “Our little Pac-Man baby,” my husband said one evening, when I was looking at my growing bump in the mirror. It was supposed to be a joke–a reference to the surviving twin having “eaten” the other–but instead of laughing, I cried. He apologized. We sat on the bedroom floor and held each other as our surviving child pummeled me from inside. It felt like joy, wrapped up in terrible sadness. As the pregnancy progressed, I still worried that I had done something wrong, because when you’re expecting, everything is expected of you. Rest, but not too much. Eat, but not for two. Keep your house clean. Keep your child alive. No wonder VTS was such a closely guarded secret. When my son was born, I was elated. Yet it still seemed bizarre and implausible that the other twin had vanished entirely. I continued to wonder: what if both had survived? How different would our family dynamic be? What if the other twin had survived instead? And as my son grew older, I noticed quirks that didn’t come from me or my husband: the way he walked, always on the balls of his feet, how he considered the world with a maturity and stoicism seemingly beyond his years. I wondered if a part of his twin was still there, helping him through. This concept may not be as unlikely as it seems. In 2014, it was discovered that a man undergoing fertility treatment was [carrying DNA from his vanished twin](https://time.com/4091210/chimera-twins/). The cells had been absorbed into the surviving twin, effectively creating a blend of himself and his brother – a chimera. With scant research into the impact of VTS on surviving twins, it’s not clear whether this phenomenon has other effects on identity. What is clear is this: Out of sight doesn’t mean out of mind. In a sense, the lost twin never really vanishes; it is left behind in the remaining sibling, the hearts of the birth parents, the deep, dark pockets of things unknown. ## Transcript The first baby conceived using in vitro fertilization or IVF was born in 1978 since then IVF has become relatively, but it's far from a sure bet. There's several steps along the way designs to increase the chance of having a healthy baby. One of these is a common screening test called preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidies or P GTA. After eggs are fertilized to create embryos clinician, take biopsies to look for any employees or chromosomal abnormalities that increase the risk of IVF failure miscarriage. Or genetic disorders at Birth, you take an embryo, you grow that embryos are around a 5 or 6 when it's called, but a blastocyst and the biopsy of the outer shell and take around 7. So I know cells are tested to see where they have the correct number of chromosomes or not. If you have extra chromosomes are missing chromosome. That is the most common cause of pregnant but test sleepy. GTA are controversial and not all fertility, specialist advice or patients to use them. Dr. Norman clature has had his doubts about the test. He says he began to notice that rates of pregnancy from IVF began to decline about 10 years ago around the same time as pgt-a testing became more common. A very large number of embryos that off the testing a supposedly showing from a normal Adnan Malik. This I really show called pose positives. How do we know that? We know that for variety of reasons, but the most obvious reason is That we already in 2014 started transferring some of those so-called abnormal a and lo and behold we have healthy babies. We came to the conclusion. That not only. may this testing not improve IVF outcomes, but for certain patient specially older women, it may actually reduce chances of conception All my kids are IVF product, my oldest is a girl. And then I have two boys and I wanted a girl. So the reason I went, I decided to do the testing is because he wanted and curl, my doctor called, and he's like, I'm sorry, they're abnormal, which I had no clue what it means, didn't work. And I remember saying to myself, that can't be, it just doesn't make sense. It's so easy with me and then we kept trying and it was devastating. I have a professor that's helping me with all of this and Israel he told me stop texting these embryos and he referred me to the clinic in New York and I consulted with them and they told me you don't need to do any more obvious. You have beautiful embryos. My doctor here who is amazing? He was really hesitant at first eventually I was able to convince him to give it a shot. Every appointment. He was shocked and it's hard to beat. He was he was completely shocked, even said I'm about to cry. And then 10 weeks game blood test was completely normal. She's turning 18 months in just a few days. And she's the best thing that ever happened to us for me. I would not have done the genetic testing again, Although Dr. Gliders Clinic has had some success without testing other researchers, stand by the test ability to detect abnormal embryos which helps protect patients from pregnancy loss with abnormal. It's going to be abnormal. A big difference will be how long does it take to get pregnant? And how many losses does she have to go through before she gets pregnant? It's a mistake to minimize the emotional burden of going to a transfer that are either unsuccessful or resulting in a pregnancy. In medicine. Nobody can guarantee success. The question is, how close can we get? The fertility experts, take different approaches, embryonic testing. They share a common goal to give their patients the best possible chance of welcoming a healthy baby. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6589113/vanishing-twin-syndrome-essay/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6589113/vanishing-twin-syndrome-essay/"},"headline":"I Was Pregnant With Twins. 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