About the same time I was just starting to learn what Twin Souls were, I found out that I had a vanished twin.
Just so we're clear, Twin Souls and vanished twins are entirely different things.
Twin Souls, as you've been reading here, are souls that were originally joined and then somewhere along the way decided to split. Various traditions and writings allude to this, as I've discussed.
Vanished twins, however, describes when twin embryos are in the uterus and one of the twins dies. Often the mother doesn't even suspect that she's lost a child -- perhaps she just noticed some extra spotting or cramping. Sometimes the dead twin becomes absorbed by the surviving embryo. I'm sure you've seen some of the more extreme versions of this on various scientific documentaries on TV. In one case I saw, a boy in a remote eastern European country walked around with a lump in his abdomen like he was eight months pregnant. When they did surgery on him, they found a dead baby inside him -- his twin. The boy recovered well, but I think the family had to come to terms with their cultural tradition which placed the blame for his illness on the parents. It was kind of a happy/sad ending.
Survivors of vanished twins often don't know that they had a twin which died, until someone who knows the emotional signs figures it out. That is what happened in my case.
I'll write about those signs next time.
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