Wombtwin.US

Feb 1 - New Opening Date for Womb Twin Art Exhibition in NYC

2012-01-22T09:46:00.002-05:00

Opening on February 1, 2012, a group art show on the subject of "Diversity" will be on exhibition for one month at Madison Avenue + 50th Street in NYC. One of the artists, womb twin survivor Monica Hudson, will show a body of work entitled, "Lost Twin Souls" made up of 60 9"x9" abstract oil paintings.

"These 'portraits' of lost twin souls channeled through me onto each canvas. I became a conduit through which the unique energy of lost twins who never made it to our world flowed, rebirthing themselves into abstract/ethereal forms - via oil paint, mineral 'spirits' and glitter - which could be recognized and revered, rather than ignored and unseen. Each portrait has its own personality which informed my choices of color, shape, layering, manipulation and completion. Since many lost womb twins go undetected, these paintings almost serve as family portraits belonging to any of us. The simultaneous use of oil paint and paint remover imparts into the work the duality of existing and not existing, much like the life of a wombtwin survivor. The visual articulation of this process was in itself deeply satisfying to me, not to mention the communion of twinship experienced by having these souls around."

Could one of these portraits be your twin?

For a sneak peek of the work, visit www.twindividual.com - "Monica's Art"

In addition to the paintings, Monica will exhibit a 9-photo collage on the subject of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

To get more details or an invitation to the show, please email: moniglam@gmail.com

Cheers,
Monica

Womb Twin Loss at Birth -or- Baby Stealing???

2012-01-19T16:08:00.002-05:00

This is a story about twin/baby stealing in Spain, but when you think about it, this could have gone on anywhere at anytime. It sounds just like my story which took place in Michigan, USA in 1963 - my parents were told my twin died at birth but years later I was unable to locate any information about what happened to her. Although they donated her to science, there was no record of where she ended up. That may be customary for science donations, as I was told by the hospital and nearby university that she may have ended up in a mass grave or cremated. She could even be floating in a jar as a specimen for all I know. But reading this story made me think perhaps they could have falsified or exaggerated her condition to increase the chances of a science donation so that there would be less of a trail...I will never know if this is just a fantasy about looking for my twin or if this could really be the case. In any event, my heart goes out to the Vega family and I am thrilled they care enough to search for their son in case they can tell him he wasn't abandoned by them. They are wonderful parents!

Families fight to find children stolen as infants in Spain
Fri Dec 16, 2011 1:50 PM EST
By Kate Snow and Jessica Hopper
Rock Center

Luis Vega is on a mission to meet every man born in Madrid, Spain on Nov. 20, 1977. That's the day doctors told him that his baby son was stillborn, but he and his wife, Ines, believe their child was in fact stolen from the hospital.

“We have a son somewhere out there,” Luis Vega said.

The Vega family isn’t alone in believing their child was stolen. This year, more than a thousand families have come forward with claims that they were victims of baby trafficking committed by a variety of networks from the 1940s until as recently as the early 1990s.

Armed with a list of the 61 names of boys born in Madrid on the same day he lost his son, Vega is making calls and knocking on doors because he is convinced his son is alive.

“What we just want only, is to tell him, ‘You have not been abandoned,’” Vega said.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For Vega, the memory of his son’s birth is still fresh. He and his wife went to a hospital in Madrid on a Sunday in November 1977. They were already parents to one son and believed they were expecting just one more child when they received surprising news: they were having twins.

“I started to think, I got two,” Vega said. “So, I was absolutely excited, astonished.”

The excitement faded when doctors came to Vega and told him that one of the twins, a boy, was dead.

“I felt frozen,” he said.

Vega said the doctor told him, “I recommend you not see him.”

At that time in Spain, doctors were authority figures who were virtually unapproachable. Vega simply didn’t question that the doctor was telling the truth.

The doctor told Vega that the hospital would handle the burial of the baby boy. His wife, Ines, was under anesthesia and was unaware of what had happened. Vega ultimately told her the sad news.

The couple comforted one another and did their best to move on with their lives, raising their newborn daughter, Ana, and their older son.

Every year on Ana’s birthday, Luis and Ines talked about her twin, the boy they lost.

This January, Vega and his wife were eating lunch and watching TV when a news report stopped them cold and made them think that the son they’d lost 33 years ago might actually be alive.

An unbelievable story was exploding in the press, allegations that for decades, organized networks stole newborn babies from their mothers and sold the babies to other families. On January 27, more than 250 families filed cases with Spain’s attorney general. That number has since risen to nearly 1500 cases.

Vega and his wife requested documentation from the cemetery where they believed their son had been buried and sent a letter to the hospital where he had been born. Cemetery officials told them that no one had been buried at the cemetery with their family’s last name.

When Vega told his daughter, Ana, that her twin brother might be alive after all, she was shocked.

“I spent like a month with a knot in my stomach. I couldn’t eat,” she said.

Ana Vega created a blog to help in the search for her lost twin.

“We are not looking, you know, for revenge,” she said. “We just want to find him and that’s it and to, if he wants to, you know, be part of our family, great. If he doesn’t, well, you know, that’s his choice as well.”

If anyone is responsible for prompting the discovery of this dark part of Spain’s history, it is documentary filmmaker and author Montse Armengou. Armengou was among the very first to report on systematic baby stealing.

“In Spain, from a long period of time, from the ‘40s until ‘80s as a minimum, we can talk about children that were kidnapped from their families, from their mothers,” Armengou said.

It started as a form of political repression under Fascist dictator Francisco Franco. Franco seized power during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. Under his leadership, the government would remove children from mothers who were political prisoners and give them to families who supported the regime.

“[In] the beginning, [it] was a political repression and after became a moral and ideological repression against single mothers. You have to know that during the Franco’s regime, the power of Catholic Church was very, very strong,” Armengou said.

Doctors, often with the help of nuns, would tell young single mothers that their child was dead or force single mothers to give their children up for adoption. At the time, single young women were still considered minors until they were 26 years old.

“It’s impossible to ask for help because you are nothing,” Armengou said. “You are only a single mother. That means that you are nothing, you are garbage, you are waste.”

The political and moral repression became a booming business with families paying the equivalent of what it would cost for an apartment, in order to obtain a child.

For those who believe they are victims of the now defunct organized networks of baby stealing, the legal process has been frustratingly slow. Despite the hundreds of cases filed, no one has been charged with any crime.

“We’re moving as fast as we can. We’re dealing with cases that are incredibly difficult,” said prosecutor Pedro Crespo who has been tasked by Spain’s attorney general to coordinate the hundreds of official investigations across Spain.

Crespo said that the passage of time, incomplete records and the fact that many of those involved are already dead has hampered the investigations.

For some, like the Vega family, the doctor they hold responsible for stealing their child is still alive.

“This bastard has taken our life,” said an emotional Luis Vega.

Vega recently became the president of S.O.S. Bebes Robados Madrid, one of the organizations helping those who think they might be victims.

Vega said that he doesn’t expect he’ll ever truly get justice, but hopes ultimately he’ll find his son.

“I’m convinced,” Vega said. “Otherwise, why [am I] going to fight…I’m fighting for this and everything.”

Editor’s Note: Kate Snow’s full report, “Stolen At Birth,” airs on Rock Center with Brian Williams on Monday, Dec. 19 at 10 p.m./9 c.

Womb Twin Art Exhibition Coming to NYC!

2012-01-08T08:38:00.003-05:00

Opening on January 26, 2012, this group art show on the subject of "Diversity" will be on exhibition for one month at Madison Avenue + 50th Street in NYC. One of the artists, womb twin survivor Monica Hudson, will show a body of work entitled, "Lost Twin Souls" made up of 60 9"x9" abstract oil paintings.

"These 'portraits' of lost twin souls channeled through me onto each canvas. I became a conduit through which the unique energy of lost twins who never made it to our world flowed, rebirthing themselves into abstract/ethereal forms - via oil paint, mineral 'spirits' and glitter - which could be recognized and revered, rather than ignored and unseen. Each portrait has its own personality which informed my choices of color, shape, layering, manipulation and completion. Since many lost womb twins go undetected, these paintings almost serve as family portraits belonging to any of us. The simultaneous use of oil paint and paint remover imparts into the work the duality of existing and not existing, much like the life of a wombtwin survivor. The visual articulation of this process was in itself deeply satisfying to me, not to mention the communion of twinship experienced by having these souls around."

Could one of these portraits be your twin?

For a sneak peek of the work, visit www.twindividual.com - "Monica's Art"

To get more details or an invitation to the show, please email: moniglam@gmail.com

Cheers,
Monica

Today is International Womb Twin Day!

2011-12-21T17:25:00.002-05:00

Today is the official day of recognition for us Womb Twin Survivors around the world.

This year I haven't done a private celebration but instead have been reflecting on all of us survivors who care so deeply about the twin lives that didn't come to fruition here and how they impacted us forever. Despite our pain and struggles, womb twin survivors are special people and now that I have taken the healing journey, I feel so blessed to be one! Even better, to know others who have walked the path has changed my life.

We are remarkable survivors and it truly is special that we have this day of connection and remembrance. I am grateful for being understood and for understanding myself and my hidden story, thanks to Womb Twin.

Hoping all the womb twin survivors of the world, and their lost womb mates, had a meaningful day today. If you'd like to share your story about your celebration, please email to moniglam@gmail.com and it will be posted here.

Blessings,
Monica

Report on the Annual Womb Twin Conference 2011

2011-12-08T07:11:00.007-05:00

I just attended my first ever Womb Twin Conference in England and can't imagine missing out on such an amazing opportunity to meet almost 30 other womb twins and spend the day immersed in topics of interest. Contrary to our usual mode of fitting into a singleton world, it was a unique experience to be in our own womb twin space where there was instant recognition and everything was custom-tailored.
The entire day was relevant, a rarity for womb twins!
To experience that alone was huge.

The presentations I attended were informative and validating. There were workshops in Art and Drama Therapy and plenty of breaks for connecting and sharing. The pastoral center where the conference was held was gorgeous with lovely landscaping. During the lunchbreak I went outside with Petra from Germany who taught me her new technique called Human Straightness Training. It was developed with horses but she has translated it for human benefit and is now making it available to womb twins. We spent 15 minutes doing it and my shoulder pain (where I was affected by the absorption of my identical twin) was gone for the rest of the day (with continued relief as I do it).

I gave a presentation entitled "Making Our Lost Twins Real and Letting Them Go" using several examples from North American Womb Twins of how to use symbols and rituals for healing. Thanks again to everyone who allowed me to feature a bit of their story.

Best of all was the chance to meet all the womb twins from different parts of the world and feel we are so much the same. I really enjoyed getting to know in-person those who I correspond with on the yahoo chat group and meeting new-to-the-scene womb twins too. It warmed my heart that we even had a non-womb twin among us, she had to live in our world rather than the other way around for a change! And let's not forget the twins who volunteered their time and brought womb twin cupcakes, I give them so much credit for being there. Such blessings!

The following day there was a small intimate workshop lead by Althea Hayton at another venue. There were 10 of us who worked hard processing our womb material all day in a perfect amalgam of Womb Twin Healing, Family Constellation, Gestalt and Psychodrama. Our fearless leader took us to very deep places to shake us into transformation, our fellow womb twins who shared the space made it so safe. I am still integrating it a couple weeks later which is why it's taken so long to write about. Powerful stuff!!

Next year the conference will be at the Friends Meeting House in London, November 17, 2012.

http://www.friendshouse.co.uk/

And check this out - there's a twin/triplet/twinless deal:
If you and 2 others register and pay, you get 50% off your registration fee.

Do yourself a favor - GO!

'Tis The Season...for Womb Twin Day!

2011-12-03T12:14:00.002-05:00

It's December...among the celebrations this time of year, let's remember WOMB TWIN DAY on December 21st.

December 21st is a special day set aside to remember and honour our womb
twins. You can create a special online memorial to your twin, make a
donation to Womb Twin, or even get a group of womb twin survivors together
and carry out a joint ritual of memorial.

The date of December 21st was chosen for Womb Twin day for three reasons:

1) We need one day in the year when we think especially about our womb
twins, and we do so on the same day, to make it more important and
memorable, and so we can give support to each other on that day.

2) December 21st is the winter solstice in the Northern hemisphere. It is
the darkest day of the year, but thereafter the day begin to lengthen
towards the coming summer, so it is a time for new hope in the midst of
darkness.

3) December 21st is the Christian feast day of St Thomas. His special day is now celebrated on July 3rd, but traditionally it
used to be 21st December, so we can reclaim that day for our womb twins.

See more here:
http://wombtwin.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8265bdaa07f8ffa6092e863f1&id=525b3eb65d&e=e27d2206b5

Find out more about Womb Twin day
http://wombtwin.us1.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=8265bdaa07f8ffa6092e863f1&id=3b2b589434&e=e27d2206b5

During this charitable time, do remember to encourage much needed donations to Womb Twin.

With thanks and Twin Wishes for Two Turtle Doves!

Twin Identity Show on Oprah Winfrey Network tomorrow

2011-11-12T22:02:00.001-05:00

Our America with Lisa Ling
Twin Lives
It's something no "singleton" could understand - the mysterious bond between identical twins. From the world's largest meeting of multiples, to sisters separated at birth, we'll explore the age-old question of what shapes our identity: nature or nurture?

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/own/tv-schedule/index.html?date=2011-11-13#ixzz1dYCv72G7

Conference Registration still open but not for long!

2011-11-01T19:50:00.002-04:00

The Womb Twin Conference, St Albans UK
----------------------------------------------------------------
There are no more residential places available for the conference
on November 19th, but there are still 3 places left for day visitors.
Registration will close on November 3rd.
So if you want to come this year, act now!

http://wombtwin.us1.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=8265bdaa07f8ffa6092e863f1&id=9897683262&e=e27d2206b5

About Twin Absorption

2011-10-21T07:57:00.005-04:00

Very interesting & informative article by a mother who carried a vanishing twin pregnancy. It explains two different ways a twin can be absorbed and disappear.

Vanishing Twin Syndrome
By Deborah Bohn

The rise in early-term ultrasounds has brought the Vanishing Twin Syndrome to light, revealing that a surprising number of twin pregnancies result in the birth of only one baby.

�We won the conception lottery!�

That�s what I wrote in my online journal when I found out that my husband and I were expecting twins. After months of hormone injections, blood tests, ultrasounds, pills, ovulation test kits and egg extraction procedures, plus a heartbreaking miscarriage, we had finally hit the baby jackpot with the help of a fertility specialist and in vitro fertilization. The ultrasound image at my eight-week check-up showed two shrimp-like embryos and two little heartbeats flashing on the screen. My gynecologist gave me the phone number for a twins support group and told me to get ready for a wild ride!

Imagine my shock and horror when the next ultrasound, a mere two weeks later, showed one fat, wriggly embryo and one tiny bean-shaped one with no heartbeat. We were devastated. Grief stricken. How could this have happened? What went wrong? And what was going to happen to the surviving fetus?

The doctor said I was experiencing Vanishing Twin Syndrome, a common occurrence in the early stages of a multiple pregnancy. I might feel some cramping and possibly a tiny bit of bleeding, but the healthy baby would most likely survive and the �little one,� as we called it, would be reabsorbed by my body over time and simply�vanish.

He was right. Although we were emotionally devastated by the loss of our tiny unborn baby, there was no discomfort or bleeding. My 20-week ultrasound revealed a healthy fetus and an empty amniotic sac, but no sign of the little twin. Our daughter was delivered healthy and on time, but we still think about what it would have been like to raise twins. We still sometimes miss the baby that came and went like a little ghost.

Freak of Nature? As strange as it sounds, vanishing twins are pretty common. Before the advent of early ultrasounds, women didn�t realize they were carrying multiple babies until the heartbeats could be heard at 12 weeks or until their regular five-month ultrasound. If two embryos had been conceived and one lost during the first trimester, a mother would never have known it.

Experts currently estimate that one-eighth of pregnancies begin as twins. But of course, the percentage of pregnancies that make it to term is smaller. Fertility specialist Dr. Carolyn Givens of the Pacific Fertility Center estimates that between 15 and 20 percent of all twin pregnancies will miscarry one fetus. �That�s what happens what happens with a vanishing twin,� she says, �You have an early miscarriage of the twin.� Those estimates are supported by a 1986 sonogram study of 1,000 pregnancies. Exactly 21.9% of the women carrying twins in the first trimester experienced a �vanishing twin" event. Due to the increased use of fertility drugs and assisted fertility techniques like in vitro fertilization, there�s been a spike in multiple pregnancies and an accompanying rise in early gestation ultrasounds, so what used to be an almost unheard of phenomenon is rapidly becoming a hot topic among mothers.

What Happens? When our twin disappeared, I found myself wondering if I�d done something wrong to cause the embryo to die. Did I sleep in the wrong side? Inhale someone�s second-hand smoke? Lug my heavy one-year-old daughter around too much? The fact is that most of the time a twin vanishes during the first trimester for the same reason a single baby miscarries: There�s a fatal genetic problem with the embryo and it couldn�t continue developing into a full-fledged fetus. Dr. Givens explains, �This usually happens within the first eight weeks because that�s when the organs form, and if there�s a problem, this is when it will occur. If there�s a chromosomal problem, some important gene doesn�t turn on or do what it�s supposed to do and the heart will stop developing.�

However, older mothers tend to experience vanishing twin losses more frequently. �Spontaneous fraternal twins are more common in older moms because they ovulate more than one egg more often. And older women have a higher rate of miscarriage because of chromosomal abnormalities,� Givens says.

Unlike the miscarriage of a singleton, a woman is less likely to have bleeding with a vanishing twin because the healthy embryo keeps generating hormones to keep the placental lining in place for nourishment and protection. That�s why many women have no idea the second twin even existed. There were no obvious signs that it was ever there and no physical indications of a problem when it died. While there is �minimum physical risk to the mother if it happens in the first trimester,� according to Dr. Givens, there is a small (less than 10%) chance that the healthy baby will be lost at the same time. In that event, both embryos would be washed away in the blood of what appears to be a heavy period, but is actually an early stage miscarriage.

Late-Term Loss Tragically, just like some singleton babies are lost in the second or even third trimesters, the same goes for twins. But the risks to the mother and surviving baby are much greater in the case of a multiple pregnancy. When a single baby stops growing, the body either expels the fetus, resulting in a miscarriage or a stillborn baby, or a doctor removes the tissue for the safety of the mother. But when a twin is lost late in a pregnancy a few different things can happen.

�If you lose a twin after 20 weeks, you are at a much higher risk to lose the other one. There�s so much tissue present that the body wants to expel it and take the live one with it,� Dr Givens explains, �The major risk to losing a twin when the other isn�t ready to be delivered, is the prematurity of the surviving twin.�

On the other hand, if non-living tissue remains in the uterus, the mother is at risk for coagulation problems caused by proteins from the tissue releasing into the mother�s bloodstream. This can cause a condition called Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation that can kill the mother and always results in the death of the remaining baby.

In extremely rare cases, a late-term twin actually vanishes too. Sometimes the water from the dead fetus is reabsorbed into the mother�s body, but the weight of the surviving twin compresses the remaining fetal tissue and forms a fetus papyraceus�a flattened and "mummified" fetus that can block the vaginal opening and require a cesarean delivery. Occasionally the tissue from the perished twin is absorbed by the surviving fetus and forms a tumor, called a teratoma, filled with its missing sibling�s bone, teeth or hair. There have been cases in which part of a twin projects from the body of the surviving twin, sometimes resulting in extra limbs or other duplicated body parts like organs or bones, only discovered later in life by an x-ray or CAT scan.

Stranger than Fiction In extremely rare cases of vanishing twin syndrome, two early stage embryos fuse into a single embryo containing two unique sets of DNA. The surviving twin becomes what�s known as a chimera�essentially two people in one body. Chimeras can have different sets of DNA in different body parts. For instance a male chimera can have one type of DNA in his skin cells but what appears to be an entirely different person�s DNA in his sperm cells.

A 2003 study in the New England Journal of Medicine by Dr Margot Kruskall of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, reported the case of a mother who required a kidney transplant. All three of her natural sons were tested as potential donors, but only one appeared to be her biological son, although she gave birth to all of them. Genetic tests revealed that the patient was a chimera�a physical blend of fraternal twin sisters�and her ovaries produced eggs belonging to both twins, thus she could give birth to three sons who were genetic half-brothers; one of them sharing DNA with his mother and two sons sharing DNA with their vanished �aunt.�

According to the November 2003 New Scientist magazine, �Some chimeras do have unusual physical features. For example, one girl was discovered to be a chimera because her eyes were different colors, one brown, the other hazel. Others have come to light when doctors investigated problems with their reproductive systems, and found that they had structures from both male and female reproductive organs as a result of having cells of both sexes in their bodies. But most probably go through life utterly unaware of their unusual constitution.�

The Emotional Toll In my experience�and everyone�s is different�Vanishing Twin Syndrome is like simultaneously hosting a birthday party and a funeral in the same room. You�re thrilled and relieved that you�ve got a healthy baby growing bigger and stronger, while you�re mortified that you�re carrying a dead baby in your belly and heartbroken by the loss of a child you longed for so desperately. As a fertility specialist, Dr. Givens sees a large number of initial multiple pregnancies that ultimately result in a single live birth. She says, �Prospective parents generally have mixed feelings when they lose a twin. In the fertility world, a lot of times people don�t have kids, this is their first pregnancy, and the loss is almost universally a sad thing for them. But it depends on whether they really wanted twins to begin with. Sometimes couples are a little relieved if they already have children and don�t want twins. Either way we tell them that the twin wasn�t healthy, so the loss was actually a positive thing, although it might not feel that way at the time.�

Could You Be a Twin? Could you be the surviving half of a twin pregnancy? Could you have been pregnant with twins and not known it? As reported by Lawrence Wright in The New Yorker, Professor Charles E. Boklage, a developmental biologist at the East Carolina University School of Medicine and a well-known twinning expert says that Vanishing Twin Syndrome �is much too common to be considered phenomenal, and it occurs for too many reasons to be considered any kind of syndrome.� He contends that since most pregnancies fail in the early weeks�often unbeknownst to the mother�the early loss or disappearance of a twin is to be expected. Dr. Boklage estimates that for every set of live twins there are at least six singletons who are survivors of twin conceptions. He says, "Somewhere in the vicinity of ten to fifteen percent of us�and that's a minimum estimate�are walking around thinking we're singletons when in fact we're only the big half!"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm adding this content September 11, 2009

I am an absorbed twin. I'm 52 years old as of this writing in 2009 and I did not discover the fact of my birth condition until I was in my forties. While I was growing up I had two sets of most of my baby teeth, and I've had three sets of adult molars; they matured and decayed and replaced themselves. I was also born with ovaries and testes, vagina and penis, have feminine skin and hair, masculine skeletal structure, and a capacity to multi-task between the female and male perspectives. I believed myself to be a girl until I started puberty, then accepted that I was a boy until I was in my mid-thirties, and then re-identified as a woman. By the way, the differences between the female and male perspectives are astoundingly different, and I see life from both when I want to.

I have younger twin sisters. I fathered 4 sets of twins, none of whom went full term. And the two sons we created are healthy and well adjusted, and have families of their own.

My genetic profile is all over the place; so much so that the last testing facility has yet to release my profile to me because they can not figure it out. I've been three times by them. It's the VA, and they are not all that up-to-date when it comes to medicine "outside the box". In fact, when I seek health care as a woman they tell me I cannot have certain things because one doctor things I am male, yet they deny other things I need to support male health because I am a woman. Go figure!

So, here you have an open and sincere account of an abosrbed twin life.

Cheers,

Megan

Vanishing Twin on TV: Chimera Drama on CBS

2011-10-15T11:21:00.003-04:00

This new medical supernatural drama, A GIFTED MAN, is about a "self absorbed" surgeon (was he a womb twin survivor who absorbed his other half?) and this particular episode features a chimera which they accurately call a twin. The medical profession used to say "it's a cyst with teeth and nail matter" and leave it at that. This is encouraging and I'm happy to see it on mainstream tv.

After the "twin" is surgically removed from this man's brain, the patient is still hearing the screaming of this voice in his head and tells the surgeon "you didn't get him out"...and that is where womb twin healing comes in. We do know how to exorcise twin voices!

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/cb-HM96yhfZgzxB7tICE_vHsi9pvjwBRbEB/a_gifted_man_the_vanishing_twin_season_1_episode_4/

Thank you CBS for saying it like it is!

Womb Twin US goes to the UK!

2011-10-13T19:55:00.008-04:00

I just can't contain my excitement so I have to tell you that my presentation at the Annual Womb Twin Conference in the UK next month will be JUICY!
The topic is "Making our Lost Twins Real and Letting Them Go" and I plan to review - and show (yes, visual delights await!) several examples from the womb twins in the U.S.
(thanks to those who gave me permission to use their stories!)

Only a few days left to register so if you haven't yet done so, I urge you to join us for a lifechanging experience. www.wombtwin.com

Another exciting development is the launch of my own personal website for womb twin healing in the U.S. at www.twindividual.com
Please visit to learn more and to see some of my artwork entitled "Lost Twin Souls."

I'm looking forward to meeting others just like me from around the world and with art & drama therapists on the roster it will no doubt be an amazing conference this year. That instant recognition twin-survivor-fix can't come soon enough!

Althea Hayton is doing a small group workshop the following day, which I'm also attending. If you can't do Saturday, come Sunday!

See you in November!!

Last 2 weeks to Register for Womb Twin Conference on Nov 19

2011-10-05T07:58:00.004-04:00

Looking forward to seeing everyone at the conference, be sure to register asap below if you are going.

I'm excited to be one of the presenters this year!
The subject of my talk is "Making Our Lost Twins Real and Letting Them Go" using symbol and ritual, a crucial step in the healing process.

The Womb Twin Conference, November 19th
----------------------------------------------------------------
**There is still time to register for the conference, but please do so by October 17th, which is the last day for bookings.**

Register online today:
http://wombtwin.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8265bdaa07f8ffa6092e863f1&id=cc08a7969a&e=e27d2206b5

2011-09-29T15:37:00.000-04:00

Left Handedness + Vanishing Twins correlated in news article

2011-09-26T16:56:00.003-04:00

What a delight to read an article that includes one of our theories!
Finally the world is catching on to what we know...

Here's a news article which theorizes left handedness could be due to vanishing twin syndrome/mirror twinning...

http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/09/26/7885486-new-book-explores-the-mysteries-of-southpaws?gt1=43001

Fetal Pain - When?

2011-09-24T13:07:00.000-04:00

In the US there is a trend of some states banning abortions after 20 weeks conception, based on the theory that the fetus can feel pain at this point. A recent NY Times article states "Based on current knowledge, medical organizations generally reject the notion that a fetus can feel pain before 24 weeks."

"The suggestion that a fetus at 20 weeks can feel pain is inconsistent with the biological evidence" says David Grimes (a prominent researcher & professor of ob/gyn) "To suggest that pain can be perceived without a cerebral cortex is also inconsistent with the definition of pain."

The Royal College of Ob/Gyn in Britain said of the brain development of fetuses: "Connections from the periphery to the cortex are not intact before 24 weeks of gestation and, as most neuroscientists believe that the cortex is necessary for pain perception, it can be concluded that the fetus cannot experience pain in any sense prior to this gestation." The report goes on to say the physical recoiling and hormonal responses of younger fetuses to needle touches are reflexive and do not indicate pain awareness.

Abortion opponents are countering this by claiming that a functioning cortex is not necessary for the experience of pain. And I would have to agree based on my experience as a womb twin healer.

I've worked with womb twin survivors who remember and feel pain from the earliest moments of conception, and carried it their whole lifetime into adulthood. The details don't change and are consistent over time. I've gone back to those painful places with them and witnessed a tragedy so consistently painful it cannot be argued with. It may be a bigger psychic pain, an overwhelming all-encompassing, deep imprint on every cell kind of pain that could be similar or different from the lymbic system pain perception we know and refer to in the abortion controversy mentioned above. Regardless of the type of pain, it is truly there and it doesn't go away until it is acknowledged and expressed and then hopefully begins to lift.

What I'm declaring is: People distinctly, and with great detail, feel and recall/describe the pain of their egg splitting, their twin not implanting, their twin's cells being reabsorbed into their cells, their mother not wanting them, their mother's failed abortion attempts, their mother's successful abortion attempt on their twin, etc. And I believe it is pain, not just memory, because it gets triggered and needs release and dissipates with healing - you can't say that about memory. But could it be clairsentience that later became perceived as pain, since it was repressed and dramatic and was hard to identify? Perhaps pain is the catchword we gave it to explain the huge impact of this event.

In any case, I think there are some things that are beyond our current comprehension, probably this very subject among them. But when you see the truth in the eyes of the soul while describing their conception and the moments around it, steeped in pain so deep it can never be forgotten, there leaves no room for doubt. It just has to be accepted. And my feeling is - even if the mind made it all up - it's still a valid vehicle in which to move this energy out and express something so as to move toward healing, so all of it needs to be considered valid, regardless of the label we put on it.

As I always say, the proof is in the healing.

A Womb Twin Survivor 9/11

2011-09-13T14:04:00.006-04:00

My inner 9/11 is a loss which looms just as large and digs just as deep to me as the outer 9/11...yet there is no coverage of the lone witness, made more so by society. Odd stares of judgement were my only funeral for decades. Such devastating alienation added to the aloneness incomprehensible to a twin and entirely inconceivable to a singleton, whose death rituals and symbols need no explanation among the rows of shoulders to cry on for lesser losses.

As the world mourns 10 years since 9/11/01 with all its remembrance pageantry and public acknowledgement of sorrow, it is painfully clear to me that memorials are only for certain deaths.

The lone tower standing without its twin, ready to fall down and die at any moment, is me.

The tower jumpers mirror the death of a twin who couldn’t implant and fell away to an unknown abyss, to its surviving twins' horror.

The sickening vagueness in the lack of evidence and desperate need for closure by 9/11 survivors is the birthright for womb twin survivors who can’t even remember any different.

Although the tragedy of 9/11 feels equal to my inner loss, the difference is that my Ground Zero is Ground One – Individuality. Instead of a grim void littered with smoldering wreckage, my aftermath is a lifetime of being without my twin/triplet/quadruplet.

Here at Ground One there are no ambulances or camera crews, just a lonely incubator and the pressure to function in a world that didn’t welcome my cherished others. Here at Ground One, any kind of non-self-made ceremony would’ve helped yet nothing would’ve ever been enough.

The aching indelibility of this inner tragedy makes me a walker between worlds, never able to be a twin or a singleton, forever trapped falling from my twin tower with no place to land, among the oblivious who could be witnesses.

Imagine a world where 9/11 happened and nobody paid attention or cared. It just happened and then it was no longer happening and nobody was affected but you. And every Sept 11 you had to put on your birthday hat and smile to fool the world you weren’t dead inside, unable to articulate because there was nobody to hear. You had to be the keeper of this memory inside and if you ever said a peep, others would look at you strangely and think you should be over it by now while judging you for being affected in the first place. Now imagine those same people invite you to their dog’s funeral so you can witness a tree-planting in a dog’s memory and you must comfort their loss and not mention 9/11. This is the life of a womb twin survivor and we thought it was normal because we knew no different.

My 10 second fall lasted 44 years until I’d had enough of the ghostly invisibility of silence. Now I won’t shut up. Coming out of the closet, finding wombtwin.com and connecting with other survivors has been my anti-terrorist task force.

Recognize my glory, I am a newly constructed tower that gleams and cannot be ignored, standing taller and taller all on my own.

* * * * *
The tragedy of 9/11 resulted in 2,976 deaths – 40 of which were twins who perished and left their twins twinless.

By comparison, the tragedy of womb twin loss affects 600,000 people - most of whom don’t even know but are walking around with an inner 9/11.

"Twins of the Twin Towers" Special on Oprah Winfrey Network

2011-09-06T16:05:00.002-04:00

Some womb twin survivors are also twinless twins - regardless of when your twin was lost, this special show will be of interest:

TWINS OF THE TWIN TOWERS
The untold stories of twins who were left twinless on September 11, 2001 when the Twin Towers collapsed.

Tune in to OPRAH WINFREY NETWORK
9pm EST on September 11

I had the pleasure of meeting Gregory Hoffman, one of the leaders of the twin towers twinless, not too long after 9/11. His adult twin was lost because he worked in one of the towers and they actually spoke by phone just before the second tower was hit and then contact was lost. There were approximately 40 twinless made so by the fallen towers.

In remembrance, with love and respect, of the special twins who perished in the twin towers. Wishing their surviving twins much strength and peace as they remember their separation 10 years ago.

Multiple Womb Twin's visit Greenwood Cemetery

2011-08-31T21:38:00.008-04:00

A gathering of womb twin survivors toured Brooklyn's Greenwood Cemetery recently, home to many famous graves belonging notables such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Louis Comfort Tiffany, even the Wizard from Oz. The scenic landscape includes a giant nest of parrots at the entrance gate. They escaped a shipping crate at the airport in the 1960's and have thrived here ever since despite the climate - survivors!

Interestingly, the four people on this tour were once a total of fifteen people!
3 were originally quadruplets (two: 2 females/2 males; one: 2 females/2 females) and 1 was a triplet (2 males/1 female). Two of us had born twins thus aren't just womb twin survivors but also twinless twins: one female died just after birth and the other male at 3 months.

On this occasion, not only were the unseen in marked graves, there were also unseen in unmarked graves held in the souls of us surviving twins. What a meaningful day it was for us to be together and instantly feel understood and in the company of other multiples who've walked the singleton path.

Of the 1 in 10 people who are womb twin survivors, there is an even smaller percentage of natural (pre fertility treatment) multiple survivors so it was significant that the four of were able to be together. We felt a distinction in how our multipleness differs from womb twin loss. Similar but a whole lot more. Not only were there more losses but there were multiple dynamics set up between the losses. So nice to share with others who get it.

May we all rest in peace, not only our womb twins/triplets/quads, but also those of us living and carrying the memory of our departed ones who never made it here.

In loving memory of Lawrence, Leslie Glen, Lilly, Jennifer, Jude, Momo, Finn, Molly, Sarah, Patrick, and Samuel.

NY Times Article on In Vitro/Selective Reduction = Twin Loss

2011-08-13T15:47:00.006-04:00

Here is the kind of disturbing story we hear everyday about womb twin survivors in the making due to lack of awareness about the effects of these parental choices. A good lesson in DON'T DO IT JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN AND JUST BECAUSE TECHNOLOGY WILL ALLOW IT! For the most part, it is pure selfishness for these women to seek motherhood at any cost in my opinion. Disturbing that noone is considering the negative effects on the surviving offspring, while fooling themselves that this is actually in their best interests (how convenient).

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/magazine/the-two-minus-one-pregnancy.html?_r=3&pagewanted=7&smid=fb-nytimes

Not only will these womb twin survivors remember the traumas experienced from the womb including the controlled yet random murder of their twin, these embryos may already be grieving the others that weren't implanted in addition to those "selectively reduced"! They may even carry the pain of being conceived in a petri dish on a cold table under tremendous pressure to come to being rather than coming into a warm organic host environment.

At what point, and how many thousands of dollars and damaged lives later, does it take to arrive at the conclusion "There’s a point where you just have to let nature take its course.” as this woman says? "We all think we can conquer the world, but then reality hits you, and you realize you have limitations"

The limitations were always there!
See them for what they are and stop playing "god" people!!

It's very difficult reading these careless stories but best for now to know the stories behind the womb twin survivors we may meet and heal someday in the future. We know their pain and we're here for them.

On Twin Replacements & Unconditionalism to the Extreme...Meet Dave Cat

2011-08-09T09:33:00.006-04:00

So often womb twin survivors find twin replacements in other things or relationships in born life. Due to our womb loss(es), we crave the unconditional love we once shared with our twin, and sometimes go to great lengths to feel it again.

Here's a possible wombtwin named Dave Cat who seems to have found a way to satisfy this need for unconditional presence to the exreme in his love relationship with a realistic doll or synthetic spouse.

(view article on this link)

http://www.asylum.com/2010/10/28/real-love-doll-sidore-gets-reincarnated/

He seems to be expressing/living/quenching aspects of his in-utero bond through Sidore (his twin replacement) such as non-verbal communication, one brain/two bodies, sibling play time and the dreaded part when the twin transitions from beginning life to no longer being viable.

I would guess that his most traumatic womb memory is when his twin ceased and no longer responded. He may be stuck in that moment with Sidore...regressing and compensating...but this time he has complete control over the situation. He seems to delight in the fact she has no pulse and how gratifying that he was able to "save" her when she needed repair. This may be the happiest he can arrive at without knowing the underlying story.

My concern for him, though, like womb twins who take this path - is that he will alienate himself from others at the expense of himself to keep this dream of the womb alive. Because he hasn't brought it to awareness, the complex may take over his life so that he too becomes obliterated and sabotaged exactly like his twin, out of survivor guilt.

I wish he and Sidore well and would certainly welcome his phone call if he should ever want to explore this further!

Monica
www.twindividual.com

The ultimate womb twin band: BETA PLUS EMBRYO

2011-07-31T16:35:00.003-04:00

I recently came across this band called Beta Plus Embryo!

Their lyrics are quite fitting to the womb twin cause...check it out:
(instead of cranking it up, you may want to lower your volume before clicking)

http://www.betaplusembryo.com/

New York's Beta Plus Embryo coalesces heaving grooves with hypnotic soundscapes to create an experience that delves deep into the darkness of human existence while searching for universal truths. Drawing musical influence from such diverse acts as Cocteau Twins, Skinny Puppy, Joy Division, and The Melvins, Beta Plus Embryo has creatively developed a distinct and versatile sound, complex with emotion that appeals to a wide range of psyches and tastes.

Maybe they are multiples...

Enjoy!

Evidence of Twin Absorption

2011-07-25T15:35:00.002-04:00

When a twin absorbs its twin very early, the lost twin can be evident in the form of physical anomaly's in the surviving twin, such as this: the Guinness Book of World Records winner for most fingers and toes!

This boy in India (a hotbed of fertility treatments, which can cause twinning to go right or wrong) was born with 10 toes on each foot and 7 fingers on each hand.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/22/most-fingers-and-toes-baby_n_907384.html#s307565&title=Foot_Carpenter_Sintayehu

Wonder if this boy felt his twin being separated as his extra digits were removed...

Monica

Vanishing Twin Syndrome increases chance of Birth Defects in Co-Twins

2011-07-08T09:11:00.001-04:00

Here is proof that not only did we survive emotional and spiritual effects from being a lone twin, but also endured or avoided physical effects as well:

http://topnews.us/content/241652-vanishing-twin-syndrome-increases-co-twins-chances-birth-defects

Social before Birth: Twins Interact Purposefully with Each Other as Fetuses

2011-07-05T10:26:00.002-04:00

Although this is no surprise to womb twins, it's reassuring that the rest of the world is catching up to what we know to be true about our in-utero bonds. Check out this research finding:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=social-before-birth

"TWINTUITION" show broadcasted, if you missed it here's a recap

2011-06-30T11:40:00.007-04:00

Primetime Nightline: Beyond Belief Episode: "Twintuition"
Season 1, Episode 1
Episode Synopsis: A five-part series from the producers of "Nightline" on spirituality and ESP opens by exploring possible extrasensory links between identical twins that are said to enable them to share emotions and physical sensations when they're not together. Juju Chang reports. Original Air Date: Jun 29, 2011
_____________________________________________________

The show opens with Nancy Segal conducting a twin communication study where the twins stated it was less about sending/receiving messages and more about tuning in to how the other thinks.

They showed twins who were separated at birth yet experienced similar illnessses synchronistically. They said there exists a mystical bond that can't be explained by science.

I AGREE!

Next they featured twin tennis stars Bob & Mike Bryan, showing footage of them on the court where they made the exact same movements at the same time like one mind was controlling both bodies. They said it is better if they don't talk and let it be intuitive. They also said it was more about familiarity than about telepathy, much like an old married couple becomes familiar with the other. After a period of separation, the twins began training together to "ramp up the twin thing" and get familiar again to help with the magic on the court.

I DISAGREE! THESE GUYS HAD MORE THAN FAMILIARITY BUT PERHAPS THEY ARE TOO "FAMILIAR" WITH IT TO SEE IT!

The narrator stated Twins are either hyper competitive or hyper cooperative.

The show continued with Terry and Linda Jamison, twin psychic's who model/perform and consider themselves one organism sharing one soul. They coined the term "twintuition" and channel messages from beyond via automatic writing which is how they predicted 9/11 etc. When asked with skepticism how they could be so accurate with stocks etc. and not use if for their own profit, they replied "The gift is for other people." These twins were often very sickly earlier in their lives because they took on other people's pain.

THIS INDICATES TWIN PSYCHICNESS ISN'T ABOUT FAMILIARITY, IT IS ABOUT BOUNDARIES (LACK OF) AND TELEPATHY.

The show closes with a study on 4 sets of twins conducted by Guy Lyon Playfair, author of Twin Telepathy, whereby twins were separated and hooked up to monitors to measure responses to startling activities like a balloon popping. Interestingly, the twins who showed the most similar responses, were the only twin set who chose to separate early in their lives and live independently!

THIS FINDING DEMONSTRATES MORE OF A GENETIC IDENTICALNESS THAN REASONS OF FAMILIARITY.

MY PERSONAL OPINION AS SOMEONE WHO ONCE ADOPTED A TWIN AND BECAME "TWIN PSYCHIC" LONG DISTANCE, AND WHO IS QUITE PSYCHIC ON A REGULAR BASIS, IS THAT THESE ABILITIES ARE TELEPATHICALLY SOURCED FROM TWIN WIRING PICKING UP ENERGY (WHICH FITS MORE INTO THE "SENDING/RECEIVING MESSAGES" CAMP) HOWEVER IT DOES INTENSIFY WITH FAMILIARITY.

CERTAINLY WOMB TWINS WHO LOST TWINS SO EARLY THERE WASN'T TIME FOR MUCH FAMILIARITY CONTINUE TO BE TWIN PSYCHIC.

Womb Twins to Connect this Fall 2011

2011-06-22T21:49:00.004-04:00

!!!We Need to Connect!!!

There are so many womb twins in the US suddenly, East Coast in particular. I'm hearing mostly of multiples - those who thought they were a twin only to discover there were more.

It's gratifying that so many are coming forward and finding a place to go with this syndrome. So on that note, it's time to plan a gathering in NYC of womb twins who would like to connect with other womb twins.

The day can be planned around the needs of the group, so please feel free to provide feedback based on the information below - you may do so by "commenting" on the blog or emailing me privately at moniglam@gmail.com.

1) What kind of meeting would you prefer:
a) a structured full day - seminar style with some exercises built-in
b) an informal gathering where womb twins can share and socialize
c) participation in exercises/rituals with intensive personal processing

2) What day is best for you to travel to NYC and share sacred space with other womb twins? Let us know so that we may schedule according to the groups respective availability.

Although it is a Friday, we may want to consider November 11 for its powerful symbolism as 11/11/11..per below from numerologist Alison Baughman:

The 11's message is always associated with humanity; to awaken, to uplift, to inspire, to enlighten.

This year on 11/11/11, be aware that it is a high vibrational day and your connection to the spiritual realm is heightened. It certainly is within the realm of possibility to have insightful, if not prophetic dreams and even a strong spiritual experience. You may find clarity about something that eluded you previously.

Meditate and connect to the Divine, however you define your Higher Power, and be open to receive your own personal message of the day. Be sure to also look at the news events of the day for special meaning.

So let me hear from YOU about what type of connection would serve you best.
There is great comfort in community...you don't have to suffer alone.
Just ask another womb twin, they'll get it.
Their perspective could give you the answer to a question you could never ask.
And you can do the same simply by sharing your reality.

There are lots of you out there, speak up and tell me what you need! And When!!

Yours,
Monica

2011-06-22T21:31:00.000-04:00

IMPORTANT NEWS: DSM may include new category in 2013 - Complicated Grief Disorder

2011-06-16T10:55:00.003-04:00

Call to Action - What can womb twin survivors do to help make this diagnostic code a reality - this validation would open the doors for our cause and its treatment:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=shades-of-grief

Home » Scientific American Magazine » June 2011
The Science of Health | Mind & Brain
See Inside Shades of Grief: When Does Mourning Become a Mental Illness?
The new edition of a psychiatric manual called DSM-5 tackles what to do when mourning becomes complicated or leads to depression

By Virginia Hughes | June 7, 2011 | 3
Share Email Print 1 2 3 Next >
MORTAL TOLL: For most people, extreme grief subsides with time. For some, however, it may continue unabated or lead to depression.

Image: Michael Blann Getty Images

Sooner or later most of us suffer deep grief over the death of someone we love. The experience often causes people to question their sanity—as when they momentarily think they have caught sight of their loved one on a crowded street. Many mourners ponder, even if only abstractedly, their reason for living. But when are these disturbing thoughts and emotions normal—that is to say, they become less consuming and intense with the passage of time—and when do they cross the line to pathology, requiring ongoing treatment with powerful antidepressants or psychotherapy, or both?

Two proposed changes in the “bible” of psychiatric disorders—the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)—aim to answer that question when the book’s fifth edition comes out in 2013. One change expected to appear in the DSM-5 reflects a growing consensus in the mental health field; the other has provoked great controversy.

In the less controversial change, the manual would add a new category: Complicated Grief Disorder, also known as traumatic or prolonged grief. The new diagnosis refers to a situation in which many of grief’s common symptoms—such as powerful pining for the deceased, great difficulty moving on, a sense that life is meaningless, and bitterness or anger about the loss—last longer than six months. The controversial change focuses on the other end of the time spectrum: it allows medical treatment for depression in the first few weeks after a death. Currently the DSM specifically bars a bereaved person from being diagnosed with full-blown depression until at least two months have elapsed from the start of mourning.

Those changes matter to patients and mental health professionals because the manual’s definitions of mental illness determine how people are treated and, in many cases, whether the therapy is paid for by insurance. The logic behind the proposed revisions, therefore, merits a further look.

Abnormal Grief
The concept of pathological mourning has been around since Sigmund Freud, but it began receiving formal attention more recently. In several studies of widows with severe, long-lasting grief in the 1980s and 1990s, researchers noticed that antidepressant medications relieved such depressive feelings as sadness and worthlessness but did nothing for other aspects of grief, such as pining and intrusive thoughts about the deceased. The finding suggested that complicated grief and depression arise from different circuits in the brain, but the work was not far enough along to make it into the current, fourth edition of the DSM, published in 1994. In the 886-page book, bereavement is relegated to just one paragraph and is described as a symptom that “may be a focus of clinical attention.” Complicated grief is not mentioned.

Over the next few years other studies revealed that persistent, consuming grief may, in and of itself, increase the risk of other illnesses, such as heart problems, high blood pressure and cancer. Holly G. Prigerson, one of the pioneers of grief research, organized a meeting of loss experts in Pittsburgh in 1997 to hash out preliminary criteria for what she and her colleagues saw as an emerging condition, which they termed traumatic grief. Their view of its defining features: an intense daily yearning and preoccupation with the deceased. In essence, it is the inability to adjust to life without that person, notes Mardi J. Horowitz, professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, and another early researcher of the condition. Prigerson, then an assistant professor at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic in Pittsburgh, hoped the meeting would begin the process of finding enough evidence to support changing the DSM. “We knew that grief predicted a lot of bad outcomes—over and above depression and anxiety—and thought it was worthy of clinical attention in its own right,” says Prigerson, now a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Monica

Womb Twin Thought For The Day: YOU

2011-06-16T10:25:00.003-04:00

Commit an act of SELF ish ness (the kind version)

Then notice that the world doesn't fall apart, it continues on just fine.
In fact, people don't even notice - they think it's normal!
(while you secretly think you are being mean)

Allow yourself at least a moment of being SELFish every day, then work your way up to more and more moments.

It's ok...really!
You are here to be a SELF, you just forgot due to reliving your dream of the womb.

Enjoy today, it is YOURS

Monica

In-Utero Birthday Cake + conception/split cupcakes

2011-06-11T20:56:00.002-04:00

Click on this link to see these amazing cakes:

http://flavorwire.com/185630/pic-of-the-day-kim-and-kelley-deals-twins-in-utero-birthday-cake

Could Conjoined Twins Share a Mind?

2011-06-06T16:19:00.002-04:00

Hi Friends,
I found this article titled, Could Conjoined Twins Share a Mind?, from the New York Times to be of interest and you might too. This is empathy to the max! I was fascinated by the shared vision and taste experiences. There is also mention of Christopher, a 6-year-old who has been told that he had a twin who died in the womb. The remnants of the twin, the doctors told his mother, were absorbed into his body, leaving only an unusual hairy patch on his back that still remains, the soft fuzzy shadow of a life that might have been. “If I don’t feel like being me, I can switch to how my twin feels,” Christopher told the author once, as he was playing a video game. “And if I’m mad, I can switch to how my twin feels. Then I can switch back to being me.” Heavy stuff for a 6-year-old, don’t you think? I sure hope they don’t do the reality show. I must warn you that the article is quite long. Here’s the link to it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/magazine/could-conjoined-twins-share-a-mind.html

Barbara M

Adele - a womb twin survivor?

2011-05-19T11:04:00.005-04:00

Singer Adele talks about anxiety attacks and how twin-like the pining for her ex-boyfriend admittedly is...could her husky voice and alpha talent/stardom be further indication that she survived a male twin?

In Huffington Post:
In an era marked by electronic, sexed up pop-art "statements" and superstardom for its own sake, Adele stands out by slumping back, the unplugged organ in the neon glow room, silent if not for the entrancing call she croons out, hooking into the hearts of suddenly self-aware crowd.

The unlikely popstar, the genius poet of heartbreak, has taken the music world by storm, her throwback sound and soul capturing the hearts of listeners worldwide. Her first album, "19," and hit single, "Chasing Pavements," won her two Grammys, and her new record, "21," filled with the smoothed and cradled anger that resulted from a failed relationship, have her dominating the Billboard charts like few artists have done before.

But here's the catch-22 of success: this new level of fame comes as a result of the great art that came from heartbreak, and as her lyrics show, she'd have done anything to avoid that pain. And those words don't just capture a moment in time, not just the immediate regret of a failed relationship. As she tells Out Magazine, she'd still do anything for that relationship, that love of her life to have worked out -- even give up the resulting fame.

"I don't think I'll ever forgive myself for not making my relationship with my ex on 21 work, because he's the love of my life," she says, before adding that she would have been willing to give up everything for him. Everything? "Well, I would still be singing in the shower, of course, but yeah -- my career, my friendships, my hobbies. I would have given up trying to be the best."
If Adele writes best when she's confused about love, or upset that what she has is not working, it seems there could a lot more hit records on the way, as it may be tough to find what she had with her ex-boyfriend.

"He was my soul mate. We had everything -- on every level we were totally right. We'd finish each other's sentences, and he could just pick up how I was feeling by the look in my eye, down to a T, and we loved the same things, and hated the same things, and we were brave when the other was brave and weak when the other one was weak -- almost like twins, you know--and I think that's rare when you find the full circle in one person, and I think that's what I'll always be looking for in other men."

In Rolling Stone magazine she says:
"I'm scared of audiences," she tells the magazine. "One show in Amsterdam I was so nervous I escaped out the fire exit. I've thrown up a couple of times. Once in Brussels I projectile vomited on someone. I just gotta bear it. But I don't like touring. I have anxiety attacks a lot."

MUST WATCH FILM CLIP: Ere Ibeji + Twin Loss Beliefs of the Yoruba (click on blue link)

2011-05-16T21:31:00.008-04:00

http://www.learner.org/courses/globalart/theme/6/index.html
Within this extraordinary half hour show on the subject of Death, there is a segment about the Yoruba culture in SW Nigeria which has the highest twinning rate in the world. Tune in to this film clip from 19:50 - 21:11, as transcribed below:

"Every individual has a spirit partner in heaven. In the case of twins, the bond between the two before birth was so close that one could not live without the other. Now, if one of the twins should die the belief is that the other might follow unless certain measures are taken. As a result, Ere Ibeji - twin memorials - were created into which the soul of the deceased would be invoked. If the second twin should die, they create another memorial in their memory and the mother of the twins keeps both and it is believed the spirits of these twins will continue to bless their parents"

With thanks to the Annenberg Foundation for bringing thoughtful, important culture to the masses through beautiful programming.

Part 2 - Interview with a Well-Adjusted Womb Twin Survivor - they do exist!

2011-04-28T12:45:00.005-04:00

As a follow up to Part 1 of this interview (posted below on April 6), here concludes this very special interview with a womb twin survivor who lost his female twin at birth, and is quite fine with it. He is convinced he was spared traumatic affect due to his mother's early acknowledgment and constant communication about the loss of his twin.

Consider what he shares - about a subject never spoken about with people other than his mom - an early Mother's Day tribute to the incredible instincts his mother had not to repress the loss. Let this also be a tribute to the current & future mother's of womb twins to overcome their apprehension and fears and learn to talk about it with their children. When you handle it well, your child will too. Ignoring it doesn't make it go away, it makes it much worse.

What advice would you give parents of womb twin survivors on how to handle this well for their children?
I wouldn’t evade it or negate it, I’d definitely talk about it. It’s something that did happen.

How early would you bring it up?
I would talk about it from when you brought the baby home. I remember it was a pretty early memory that I was a twin and my mother was talking to me about it, by doing that she comforted me and that’s what you want to do.

Do you feel that if she told you later in life that it would’ve been shocking rather than always growing up with that knowledge?
Sure because you set a tone with a child in exposing it to any kind of information or knowledge. If you do it later, it could be more of a shock and less embraceable. You might have difficulties developing that knowledge.

Whereas if you get it earlier, it’s just integrated into who you are?
Yes and then you have more of a possibility of developing that knowledge and nurturing it into a positive manifestation.

For instance, my mother was a great artist and she chose not to teach me that when I was very young. She taught me when I was 9 or 10 and it was hard for me to assimilate that information and I was kind of upset because I wish she did teach me earlier. To use an example, prodigies like Mozart who are taught & exposed to information at a young age can assimilate that information much easier, you don’t have to think about it too much. You’re just doing it. It’s like walking and reading and talking.

How would you suggest the subject be brought up?
Just talk. There’s no right way or wrong way…but the wrong way is not doing anything about it all. If parents are fearful and apprehensive… look, a child only wants to share with you and other people, the more sharing and conversing is done, the more adulation and love is created. And the more love and adulation, the more intelligence is developed and the greater the perception. And that’s all that beings want is that comeraderie, all species, that is the first act of communication. Just going through the motions of eating and getting up in the morning, they emulate those things. So when you start talking about things, they’re going to emulate those things.

When you do it while their young, as a parent to a child, you’re going to do it in a positive way for the most part because you’re enamored by this new being. You make it up as you go, there are no instructions on how to rear children even though there should be, but you know there are right ways and wrong ways of doing things and anything that is done in a positive, loving manner can’t be bad.

If you don’t know what you’re doing and you think you’re doing it wrong, it still can’t be bad because you figure it out as you go. And not only do you figure it out, the child figures it out, you help each other. It goes back & forth. It’s a given that the teacher learns more or just as much from the student. The master really learns from the student if he’s a good teacher. And that is a very high acknowledgment in a very sagely manner, it’s not easy to do and people who are masters and have acquired that sagely manner are aware of that. That’s what you want to manifest in and it can take a lifetime to learn to do that. Or you can just do it…as your biological being tells you to do. And if you follow those things, sometimes you can learn a lot more than you knew you could.

Did your mother ever tell you things about your twin that you didn’t like hearing - did she ever vent or say anything that wasn’t as palatable to you but served her more? Anything negative? Or was it all positive sharing?
Pretty much, I was fortunate that she didn’t - but she did vent about her mother. Even that wasn’t accusatory, just venting issues. I remember she would say things like “there’s no such thing as better, there are just different applications or different ways of looking at things.” It instilled in me not to be judgmental.

Do you think you and your mother shared the same level of grief for your twin? Did you feel on par or that there were different intensities?
I guess the grief that she was dealing with, she dealt with by acknowledging it and speaking to me about it. So I was aware of it and I could acknowledge it and in doing so, that was dealing with the grief. Now, when I got older and dealt with grief with the passing of relatives, I learned a lot about grief. You have to confront grief. You have to deal with grief. If you don’t, it manifests into disease and creates illness and ill manners and ill ways. Dis-ease.

I think that by her talking to me about it, she was dealing with her grief and I was acknowledging this information but I didn’t necessarily grieve. That’s why I brought up the family grief, it’s a different type of grief…

So was that a delayed channeling of the grief of your twin to these other later outlets?
No I don’t think so, it’s just different.

Then, would you say that you grieved at the time your mother shared knowledge of your twin’s death and it was just taken care of then? As you went along?
Right, exactly. That’s why I said I didn’t grieve. I think the initiation of this knowledge and the fact that this individual was no longer with us but we were discussing it – this is the acknowledgement of this information but also the embracing of the grief. Dealing with it and diminishing it at the same time. Working in tandem.

To make an analogy, a relative got sick and almost died but didn’t and it was so traumatic that I grieved a real sense of loss. So later, when this person eventually died, it wasn’t as hard as it would’ve been if I hadn’t dealt with that grief earlier. I think of you deal with loss, at that time, in the moment - it creates less of a dramatic situation later, no matter what.

Right, if a parent handles it well, the child can handle it well, no matter what it is.
You don’t even have to handle it all that well but dealing with it is much better than not dealing with it.

Even if it gets messy?
Even if it gets messy because then you’ll deal with it again and it will get easier. You’re still dealing with it as opposed to not dealing with it, because you never get over the death of someone very important to you. Time is kind of irrelevant about that, it could’ve happened yesterday or twenty years ago but depending on how great that individual was in your life, you’re still going to feel that hurt and sense of loss and emotional trauma. But that’s all grief is, it’s like oh we ‘memorialize this person’ but it’s not for them it’s all for us and how we deal with these things emotionally. It’s not for the people who passed. They are wherever they go, we’re still here and it’s us that are emotionally struck by these things and a lot of times these things are not dealt with. That’s why we recreate all these stories about being haunted, we create all these things in our psyche because they’re not dealt with, all this emotional baggage turns into all these diseases whether they’re physical or psychic or psychological, they’re very real and they become very real things. They can become very psychotic, either individually or communally.

So no – it just needs to be dealt with. It doesn’t matter how, it doesn’t matter if it’s the right approach or not. There’s no right way or wrong of way of dealing with this, as long as it is dealt with.

This question may not be appropriate, since you haven’t been aware of Womb Twin Syndrome, but answer it if you like: What advice would you give others who lost a twin around birth to cope?
Other twins who lost twins themselves? It’s an odd question since I never really even knew this was an issue…

Now that I know that it is an issue, and I never knew about it personally myself, I think the best thing to do is to speak about it with other people who have gone through these experiences and to share with one another and talk about it. If you didn’t have that chance when you were a child or baby, I don’t think it’s ever too late to actually try to deal with these things. But do it with people of like mind and maybe you’ll acquire a rest in the trauma and maybe a bit of understanding on how to deal with that and try to heal. What more could you ask for? That’s what I would try to do.

"Womb Twin Survivors" Book Orders on Amazon

2011-04-21T10:11:00.003-04:00

If you are trying to order Althea Hayton's newest book "Womb Twin Survivors" from Amazon, please note we are working to resolve issues so that orders can be filled as soon as possible. Althea is aware of the snag and is working on resolving it so that you won't have to wait longer than necessary. So if you experience any problems, be patient for another week or two while they correct the hold up.

Meanwhile, of course, you can always order direct from Althea at Wren Publications...or see snippets from the book on her website.

Feel free to share any feedback so we can stay on top of the book fulfillment process. We've waited long enough for Althea to write this book, and certainly don't want you to experience any more delays! It is her most comprehensive book yet, jam packed with useful information...I can't help but wonder how different my life would've been to have had this information sooner and that makes me so excited for young womb twin survivors today. Get this book and shave years of suffering off your life! Heartfelt gratitude to Althea Hayton for figuring this out!!

2011-04-15T15:32:00.000-04:00

More on the Healing Path from Althea Hayton

2011-04-12T13:57:00.001-04:00

A healing path (2) Resentment into reconciliation

When you decide to open yourself to healing, the most difficult thing is the decision to act: the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life. The procedure and the process is its own reward.

To awaken from the Dream of the Womb requires that you become aware of what keeps you asleep. Even when you don’t realise it, you are constantly re enacting your dream. If you don’t know if you are awake or asleep then you cannot know when you have awakened. The awakening is the healing: it is as simple as that.

Letting go of the Dream, which has been your way of being for so long, will be very difficult indeed. waking up will be hard. To awaken and heal, you will have to always choose to do the most difficult thing. If it is very, very difficult, then you can know that you are trying to wake up.

THE PRACTICE OF SELF-FORGIVENESS - resentment into reconciliation
The Dream of the Womb is a treadmill or prison where there must never be change or growth. Self-forgiveness can change all that. The power of self-forgiveness can stop the treadmill and let you get off. It gets you from resentment to reconciliation.

Resentment
When you are lost in the Dream, you begrudge others their ability to drink the cup of life to the dregs. You feel bitter about the hurts and abuses against you in some distant past. You bear a grudge against the people who have made you feel bad about yourself - anyone will do. You take exception to any perceived attack on your self esteem. Perhaps you secretly believe that there is much to be aggrieved and angry about, but no one seems to understand. Trivial things annoy you excessively and you feel indignant about injustice. You feel jaundiced by life in general and peeved by stupid, irritating people. You feel put out about being ignored.

You would love express your resentment by being spiteful, unfriendly, ungenerous or vindictive, but perhaps you have personal standards of good behaviour so you suppress these feelings in the name of charity and forbearance. If you do not hold these rigid standards, then you probably tend to get into a rage from time to time where spite and vindictiveness surface and explode from within you. If not, then it takes very little to send you into a rage......

Whenever you are surrounded by animosity, bitterness and discontent this makes you unhappy and you resent feeling unhappy. You try to distance yourself from people of ill-will by suppressing all indignation, irritation, jealousy, malevolence and malice towards them and being “nice.’ You are often offended but say nothing and just suffer inwardly.

Reconciliation
If you can forgive yourself of the sin of simply being the person you are, then you can cease to feel resentment. You can pardon yourself for the rancour you feel when you think of your wasted life; you can remit what you owe to the people you have let down. You can acquit yourself of your imagined mistakes; clear yourself of blame; excuse your fond fantasies, for how else could you have kept alive your Dream for so long?

You can exonerate your self from self-imposed obligations. You can begin to indulge yourself and meet your emotional needs. You can feel pardoned for the things you did not do. You can excuse the way you have often taken on more than was your due. You can be spared the inner condemnation that you always feel; make allowances for the foolish things you have believed about yourself. You can overlook the minor blemishes on your character.

The reward for doing the difficult thing
Truly, the process of self-forgiveness is its own reward. As you forgive yourself, than you will be better at compassion to others. You will give in gracefully, be lenient to others when they make mistakes. You can become the forbearing person you always dreamed of being. You will be generous and understanding of yourself and others, as we all struggle on through life.

By deciding to use the power of forgiveness, you are allowing yourself to acknowledge your existing gifts. These are:

strength, potency, efficacy and stamina to get a job done;
guts, fortitude and endurance to solve problems;
forcefulness, assertiveness and aggression to fight wrong-doing;
the ability to be constructive in thought and deed.
vitality, cogency and adequacy
The ability to take responsibility for your own life and your part in relationships.
All these gifts will be there for you when you awaken from the Dream, so start today!

This may seem like the final stage of healing, but in fact it is only the first stage in making a beginning - there is much, much more to come, but without this first stage completed, none of that can be yours.

Interview with a Well Adjusted Womb Twin Survivor - They do exist!

2011-04-06T19:03:00.005-04:00

How rare to meet a womb twin survivor who is well adjusted - I had to know more about his story ... what is his secret? He and his family handled it well and it made all the difference.

This is an interview with an adult male whose fraternal twin sister was lost during the birth process, although it was understood she would go from early on (most likely due to twin-to-twin transfusion) as she was undernourished. I just happened to meet this person and discover we both lost our twin sister at birth. He is not involved in the womb twin community and has no awareness of the healing path or that there are others like him who are on it.

He struck me as a rare example of a womb twin survivor who is well adjusted and accepting of the situation and therefore free of many problems associated with the syndrome, largely in part due to the healthy way he and his family embraced the loss. There were many generations of twins in the family and this was simply his version of the twin story which was acknowledged and had its place in the family history. Unlike so many families in our culture who repress lost twins, usually out of grief and ignorance which causes further damage due to mishandling, he and his family handled it well and therefore it sits well in him.

Tell us about your mother’s pregnancy while carrying you, whatever you may know, as well as your birth experience?
I think she didn’t know she was having twins at first, this was in the 1950’s when they didn’t have the technology, one was behind the other. Then towards the end they realized. I was 2 ½ months premature and my mom was going thru some weird stuff in her life and was suicidal. She told me she was on the verge of jumping in front of a subway train but she had stopped herself because of myself and my twin sister within her. That was always interesting later, there was a close bond thing between us. But during birth she told me this story about these three spiritual people, wise men, saying as she was giving birth “One has to go back” and I could sort of sense it when she was talking about it.

Do you think that was the first time she became aware that she was carrying twins?
I think so, I think it was pretty close in time.
I always thought about that – especially during teen/young adulthood, that my sister decided not to come onto this plane. This is a crazy world and there have been times I’ve been a little jealous that she went off onto great adventures, especially now, I mean, I’ve always known this intuitively before it was known in astrophysics, how huge the universe is and it gets bigger everyday as we see more into the great beyond. I think there’s a lot out there and I’ve always thought how ironic I can almost see us together sort of looking at planet earth coming in, as energy sources and she is sort of skidding off the atmosphere saying “No!”

So she was already skiddish before she even went in?
I wonder – it’s all so fast, the inception of life, so it’s questionable. They say you are an intelligent being at 8 weeks into conception, whether or not you are actually a part of this biosphere or not is to be questioned.
I had a friend who had a near death experience and left his body, he talked about this white cord that kept going in the atmosphere..so l don’t know if, as a spirit entity that tether comes toward the biosphere and hooks onto it, I don’t know but I always thought it was interesting that she didn’t…when I was young I missed her [referring to his twin]. My aunt had fraternal twins male/female a year older than me, also when I was a teenager she told me my grandmother had a twin also but lost it before birth.

So you had a mirror image of a fraternal twin pair growing up?
Not really – she had a foot/skeletal problem and was frail, and the boy was fine, he was big – bigger than me.

Do you know who was born first?
I don’t know, I assume she was because she was more mature but she was physically frail so it’s hard to tell.
Anyway, back to my mom and the three men during my birth, so the story was my mom would have to put one [twin] back and I have a hard time remembering her decision (she’s deceased now) but I sort of pushed myself out. I had a want to come out here. My sister wasn’t born alive, I don’t know when she died but it was during the birth.
What happened was, my mom didn’t know she was having twins and she wasn’t eating enough food for two and apparently I was eating all the food and my sister wasn’t nourished properly. I don’t think she knew there were twins until she went into labor. It’s hard for me to recall all of it exactly but I was 3 lbs 8 ozs and in an incubator for a good 2 months and it was kind of odd because they realized about a month before I was born, because I was born in February, that the oxygen had been blinding kids. They figured out how to do it right – that’s what happened to Stevie Wonder, the oxygen was too strong and it burned his eyes out. That’s what I kind of remember, my mom was struck by that and it was sort of a premonition that she was going to have to put one back.

So she knew in her soul that she’d have to put one back even though the medical doctors hadn’t yet confirmed she was carrying twins?
Yes.

Do you have any pre-birth memories you can personally recall?
I remember things very vividly from 2-3 years old whereas most people don’t.
But I don’t know, I remember her and I took it as a given – because these stories I didn’t know til later like age 9 or 10 (even though I was always told I was a twin from the beginning).
I always took it as a given and wasn’t really upset about it, I missed her and there was curiosity.
My mom used to talk about it a lot, so I guess any of the trauma that might have occurred she subdued by acknowledging it, talking about it. It would be a curious thing if I had a mother who negated it and tried to act like it didn’t happen and I could definitely see that as being a very traumatic experience. But I took it as a given, that everything was more or less ok and that this was just something that happened and was part of the experience of Being. My mom was very good at that – embracing this experience of Being. She always referred to us as Human Beings, and that concept of Being had a profound understanding.

(I refer to the “Be” heart image I posted on this blog this past Valentine’s Day as it relates to Being a Self)
Yes, but it’s not just a Be, it’s the act of Be-ing.
It’s not just a noun, it’s an adjective, it’s an act. It’s very much this living expression. With humans there is some kind of weird difference from animals, and that difference is Human Being. This presence of now. Not only now, but the linear time frame. Animals are mostly in the present and really don’t have a huge concept of linear time, I don’t necessarily agree with that I think it’s shorter maybe, I know from my experience of dealing with animals they do have a history of understanding but they don’t have this act of Being that we have.

What I was once told about this is, that humans differ in that they have capability of Story. They have a sense of story, and ability to pass that on, that animals don’t.
That’s an interesting way of putting it, yes, my mother was very much an oracle, a storyteller and that was a very big part of learning from her – through the stories. Anyway, she quelled the trauma that might have been superceded…

So you know that in your bones?
That how she handled it definitely affected how you handled it?
Yes it’s that weird innate connection/bond that we had, because when she said she didn’t jump in front of that subway (train) it was because I was helping her, and we maintained that throughout our lives. This camaraderie, nurturing and helping the sustainability between us.

Would you say she was like a twin to you in a way?
That maternal bond is extremely strong – no, my mom wasn’t my sibling or my friend, we were very close but she was my mother. She wasn’t your stereotypical mother but she was my mother and she made that clear. I sense my twin and her being is a different entity. It’s a distinct character.

So you never saw your mother as sort of like a twin consolation prize?
Never, never. I always sensed my [twin] sister’s presence, sometimes even now.

Going back to the subway incident, can you personally recall that in utero?
It’s hard to tell…here’s a sidebar analogy:
He then recounts a memory from the age of 3 in Mexico where he was standing on the bay intrigued by the small island in the distance. One day a woman came and put him on her back and attempted to swim out to the island to fulfill his dream of going there. On the way she grew tired and frightened that she would not make it. He calmed her down and told her it was going to be ok. Then a boat came and rescued them, but he connected this to being a similar situation to his mom in the subway where they comforted each other to survive.

I wonder if this could be a repeat of your womb story with your twin? Sometimes these dynamics repeat in order to bring them to awareness.
Yes. That’s why this was such a profound moment in my life.

You had to trust a stranger!
Well, no, she was actually trusting me!

But you were only 3 and that’s amazing a woman would take a 3 year old out into the ocean…
But she got tranced into what I was doing with this thing (meaning his wanting to go to the island) and then she got scared and this boat came and pulled us out of the water. The boat literally came out of nowhere from my perspective, all of a sudden it just appeared.

Do you have that in other parts of your life, this comforting other women to get where you need to go?
Yes with my mother, my younger sister, my nephews as babies, when they’re babies there’s no gender really. So in that sense it sort of repeated many times.

How much younger was your sister and were you always clear she was your sister and not your twin?
Yes, she was 10 years younger and always my sister. To her I was kind of a father also, because of the age difference.

Did your twin have a name and if not, what name would you give her?
Before my sister was born, my mom would talk about my twin sister, and she was going to name my sister Afrika and she said that was the name she wanted to give my twin [chuckling happily] so I guess that was her name.

So for you, that’s her name too?
Yes.

Getting back to when you were coming in and seeing earth, and this tether thing..
Did you and your twin have an agreement or pact between you and if you could put that into words how would you say it?
I don’t know, you know, yes…I guess there was this unity in the womb. We were spiritually going into this form of living, this – what do you call it – you know when you come into this plane and you go into a womb and you become a living entity, I seem to remember we were doing it together and I kind of sense that…
It was always a curiosity when my mom said I was the one who was nurtured the most, it was really hard to figure out how that happened but in a way I kind of sensed that if one wasn’t gonna get it then both of us would’ve probably died. If we split the nutrition, we probably both would’ve died. I don’t think there was enough for two so one had to get the greater amount and I get the sense that she [my twin] said “ok”…

Did you ever feel guilty about that?
No, not at all.

Thankful?
Yeah, but sort of beyond that though…

How did you feel?
It was sort of like a given, it was something that needed to be done and maybe because I was the one. I mean, if she was the one, then I would’ve probably died. So it wasn’t really like a sense of obli…I don’t know, not like a material thing, like “it’s mine, I’m going to take it” you know but this obligation because of nature and nurture, survival. I sort of sense her moving on, and that was a given too, she went back to the continuum.

Do you have a sense of when that was?
I do, it was during birth…and it was a given. It was what was supposed to be done. There was no hierarchy involved but later as I got older I got a sense of jealousy towards her that she…in a way it’s kind of strange, I always had a sense of her being the stronger spirit. I don’t know if that’s the influence of the matriarchal bond and knowledge, not only from my mom but my grandmother and women in general and just as females in general, as a gender with the species. I don’t know if that was the case or if it was just that she, I always had reverence towards her because of that, that strength. Even though she was the weaker one, there was a great deal of strength for her to make that move and sacrifice. There have been many times that I’ve missed her and thought she would help me through these weird situations. She would have a clear stable mind and give me advice and understand.
This is kind of weird, these feelings are old feelings that haven’t really been talked out…but as I’m expressing them, I know them instinctually to be very old feelings.

So how often to do you think about your twin?
A lot actually.

Would you say daily or more than daily, weekly, monthly….?
I don’t know, maybe weekly, bi weekly, sometimes daily. I’d say frequent, often. I’d say more often than not.

So she’s really still very much a part of you?
Yeah, yeah.

So can you distinguish between her energy and your energy as a twin?
Oh yeah. Not only that, but the sub-entities within myself. I guess there are one or two of them. But that’s separate than her also. It’s a distinct entity that I’ve always sensed, it’s not me, you know.

So about the sub-entities within… Do you feel like you have a dual personality yourself? Do you feel an alpha/beta thing or how would you describe it?
I wouldn’t call it like a dual personality per se, I would say there is some kind of weird polarization and I think that’s pretty common in most clear healthy human beings. You know in mythology, I was very enamored by Pinocchio and Jiminy Crickit and this other entity within yourself speaking to you and when I was younger it was very loud. Very loud.

Was it masculine or feminine?
It’s masculine I guess.

So it was you, it’s coming from you?
Yeah, yeah, definitely. You know, it was me but it was very separate at the same time.

So there’s a duality right there.
Yeah, but I remember I would have these dreams when I was young that started around 6 or 7, maybe earlier but I started having these dreams of flying and I could never really do it. I was afraid, I wouldn’t get too much lift and this would go on for years. Then I’d get a little more lift, I could get to the 2nd floor of the library on 10th Street between A& B. I was a little scared of flying, this would go on for years and I wouldn’t get much higher than the second floor. Then later, I’d get a little higher and get a little more control. This went on for decades. Then I might’ve been in my 20’s…
My life in the outside world prior to 6 or 7 yrs old, 1st grade was ok but in 2nd grade I was in an inferior school and the teacher thought I was smart so assigned me to a smarter class. My mom transferred me to another school where the learning curve was way too high and I didn’t have academic training even though I was with people at the same intelligence level. The point being, it turned out I had dyslexia and when I got to 2nd grade I cheated on a spelling test to avoid embarrassment and she humiliated me in front of the whole class. That left a really bad…it was a really bad experience. My school experience with other people and friends – I lived on the East Side/they lived on the West Side, rich people/poor people, hipsters/straight and all these dualities..in that environment with friends & relatives, brilliant brilliant people, I was on par with them but in the normal social environs & activities were exceedingly uncomfortable. I didn’t live in the same neighborhood, but I understand why my mom did it and I don’t necessarily regret it, but it was very difficult to navigate through.

So you had a lot of anxiety?
A lot of anxiety. And then they took me out of the smart class and put me in the lower class because I cheated on that test and was put with the inferior people that weren’t as smart and I was bored to tears but I didn’t have the academic wherewithal and luckily I went to some private schools for dyslexia. But I could do a lot of things that no one else could do plus my mom was always teaching me things and I was always learning things so it was a weird dichotomy and I didn’t know til much later – I didn’t read my first cover to cover book til I was 16 or 17 and it was Hesse – and I remember reading ‘A Stranger In A Strange Land’ and I identify with that stranger so much, I still do, feeling like on this planet and not being able to fit in properly. Being a person with a big heart and kind and other people not understanding it and even castigating you behind it. Anyway, I really identified with that. I thought about my sister again and if she were around, I mean, my mom helped a lot but it took a really long time until I had friends per se. There were always interruptions for a lot of different reasons. It would get really good and then something would happen and they would get taken away or move or all these pretty heavy scenes.

Did you feel lonely?
No, I was never lonely per se but was very disheartened because of these interruptions.
I remember we moved around a lot and we didn’t have a steady continual environ until 5 or 6 yrs old and we stayed in that place until I was 13. Best friends would move, another came to live with us then he was taken away and we were really close and that was a huge break up.

Is it repeated abandonment?
Not only abandonment but you find somebody you gel with and then it almost gets to a point of familiarity, a comfort level, where you’re not guessing anymore and it’s this nice comeraderie and you start to work on that kind of magic - which is a whole other thing to perpetuate and when it gets interrupted, it’s like you’re suddenly floundering in the ocean, you know.
I would try to connect with fellow pupils and it was very difficult. I was always kind of an outsider.

So you’ve always felt different?
Always. I mean, yeah, always. It’s always been hard, I’ve led a very difficult life. I’ve always feigned a sense of complacency or chill or whatever…to fit in and not call attention to how different I am and also to maintain a level of sanity. I used to make these really deep reflections and go through thoroughly what happened over the past 6 months or year, biannually maybe more, thorough inspections of what I had done. I did that for 15-20 years but it hasn’t happened in a really long time but I used to sort of be my own therapist. That’s why I have had trouble with therapists, I am my own therapist because I do a better job.

As we conclude Part I of II of this interview, I offer some information about being a womb twin re: boundaries, navigating the world as an individual, hypersensitivity, Self awareness, duality, black holes – all which he agress with and finds very interesting. He said:
Talking about this like we’re doing is not only airing it out but bringing it back up so you can see it and identify with it, relate with it, embrace it and be part of it again. I always refer to this act of Being as Nativity. It’s a word I got in a weird altered state, my mother was very much a visionary, a seer, an oracle, an untrained shaman. She didn’t like it sometimes, she didn’t want to know, it was a burden. She didn’t have a lot of control because she wasn’t trained at it and it would scare her. My level of perception is acute in many ways, I don’t call it an extrasensory perception, I call is an intelligence, i.e. intelligence = perception. The keener your perception the more intelligent you are. I’m not necessarily academically intellectual in all levels I’m not a master of math but I understand physics. My friends, who are brilliant, say “It’s ok, you communicate that anyway” without knowing the language of mathematics. Talking about this starts to open up the perception and, as you said, dealing with these uncomfortable navigations.

It’s all about maintaining the species, Darwin called it survival of the fittest. But it’s like, life wants to live and if one has to die for it to live, that’s what it does and that’s not an act of violence it’s an act of kindness actually. That’s what I see. For some reason, human beings get it confused, I don’t know exactly why.

I look forward to Part II of our interview and beyond!
Thanks for reading...

Monica

Reminder to Register for May 7 - NYC

2011-03-30T10:19:00.002-04:00

May 7 is fast approaching - please register asap for the Womb Twin workshop with Althea Hayton in NYC, if you intend to come.

For info, contact Monica at 347 683 4063 or the download brochure on the right side of this blog page.

Don't miss this rare & exciting chance to spend a day with the "Goddess of All Things Womb Twin"! We are lucky to get her here following the recent release of her newest book "Womb Twin Survivors: The Lost Twin in the Dream of the Womb" now available via Wren Publications or Amazon.

Happy Spring!

Fishing for Womb Twins & Raising Awareness

2011-03-15T16:16:00.003-04:00

So often I hear about how womb twins can't speak their truth, making them feel left out by society when they already feel left behind by their twin. Which is why I love to bring up the subject of womb twin surviving as much as possible!

Recently, I was at a cool social event in NYC. Given the long winter, everyone was busting out for some fun. The men were crowding around the pretty ladies to talk to them/us. I met a model-type who told me she was studying child psychology at NYU. I instantly became excited, telling her all about WTS which she would no doubt be treating in the children of the future. She was so fascinated to hear about this, as I pulled my womb twin business cards out, that I became more animated and our excitement couldn't be contained. Soon, there was a feeding frenzy of men asking what we were so excited about. In the funnest tone (and loud enough to be heard over the music) I said "Twins are dying in the womb and leaving their living twins behind, we help them heal" (it's fun to shout my truth from the rooftop!) Although I was prepared for the usual type reaction, to my surprise everyone became animated and wanted to get in on the action! (this may have had something to do with my contagious excitement in delivery) As they gobbled up my business cards, one man said "I was a twin, she died when we were born!" Althea's image of the "1 in 10" people came to mind - it felt like I had gone fishing into a pool of 10 people and caught the 1 womb twin survivor.
Now when I ride the train or walk in a crowd, I try to pick out the 1 in 10 as an interesting exercise just to feel the scope of 'not being alone' with this syndrome.

In talking with my new womb twin friend, it seems he has been happy with his life and has not missed his twin. He knows everyone is where they need to be and never had any sadness about it. Now this is a rarity! I must hear more...stay tuned to this blog for an interview with him.

This gives new meaning to the term "pick up line" - go reel them in!!
Raise awareness in fun and inappropriate ways, catch them offguard and hit them with your message. The world is readier to hear it, let's keep it going...

Womb Twin Survivors: The Lost Twin in the Dream of the Womb

2011-03-08T10:42:00.003-05:00

How exciting that Althea Hayton's latest book has hit the market - and is now available on Amazon! This is no small achievement, the book itself, but also the sheer fact that you can log on and order something to explain a condition that in prior times would have no explanation. No more feeling freakishly alone with it!

For those womb twin survivors just coming onto the scene, you are lucky indeed to come to terms with this at a time where the world can meet you where you are and support you. It wasn't always this way, it was tremendously difficult suffering alone with overwhelming feelings which had no explanation. Hooray for a new day!

Thankfully, Althea Hayton and all us womb twins coming into our power, are figuring this out - together - and have alot to say and heal. What a revolutionary time. The best news is that, with help, we can overcome our brokenness so that it doesn't hinder bringing our special powers of compassion to this earth plane.

Here's the book description from Amazon.com for the new book "Womb Twin Survivors: The Lost Twin in the Dream of the Womb"

A comprehensive study of womb twin survivors, i.e. the sole survivors of a twin or multiple conception, which includes a "vanishing twin" pregnancy. An illustrated guide to the biology of twinning and multiple conceptions, which also describes the feelings of grief and loss felt by the sole survivor after the death of a twin during pregnancy or around birth. A detailed review of the eight-year Womb Twin research project carried out by Althea Hayton using an online questionnaire and involving many hundreds of womb twin survivors. From this study a psychological profile has emerged, revealing that womb twin survivors are unusual people who experience unexplained psychological distress. They have problems with relationships, a fragile sense of self and a tendency towards self-sabotage. A five stage, self-help healing process for womb twin survivors is described including a farewell ritual for their twin. About 10% of the population are womb twin survivors but until very recently it has not been possible to identify them and study them. This book will be of great interest to medical professionals, psychotherapists and of course womb twin survivors and their families. Complete with stories by womb twin survivors in their own words, illustrations, case studies and appendices.

Order it today!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_dnainfo/controversial-anti-abortion-billboard-to-be-removed

2011-03-02T14:31:00.000-05:00

This controversial billboard was recently removed in NYC. Regardless of the message, or how one feels about the message, this advertising slogan brings WOMB awareness to the forefront and that is a good thing...too much of society still doesn't recognize how our intrauterine life shapes us so this is one small step in the right direction.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_dnainfo/controversial-anti-abortion-billboard-to-be-removed

Happy Valentine's Day Womb Twins!

2011-02-14T11:38:00.003-05:00

"Born This Way" - Lady Gaga's performance on The Grammy Awards

2011-02-14T11:29:00.002-05:00

Last night's performance of "Born This Way" by Lady Gaga at the Grammy Awards serves as yet another example of how "birth" shapes us. Nice to see an artist-of-influence bring this to the world stage and mass consciousness...more below:

Lady Gaga wore...an egg? Wow. We wondered what Gaga would come up with this year, but we couldn't have imagined this! Lady Gaga arrived on the 2011 Grammys red carpet Sunday night in completely stunning style without ever showing us her dress. Gaga was "incubating", encased in a silver, semi-translucent egg, or "womb", and being carried on a litter or palanquin by four barely-dressed man servants and attended by a female "nurse" as she awaited her birth from the womb that held her.

VIDEO: Lady Gaga Egg Arrival: Gaga Returns To The Womb For Grammy Night!

Lady Gaga, barely visible on the 2011 Grammys red carpet inside her egg-shaped womb, seemed to be wearing the strangest accessory of all this year: an oxygen mask hooked up to a tank inside the "womb" with her! Inside the egg forged of unknown material matter, Gaga also appeared to be wearing a black outfit with exaggerated shoulders and dark sunglasses.

PHOTOS: See exclusive 2011 Grammy Awards Photos here!

VIDEO: Lady Gaga In Her Egg On The 2011 Grammys Red Carpet!

When Gaga's vessel and keepers met up with E's Ryan Seacrest, we could see her peeking out from her "womb". However, Gaga's egg-tourage and style manager informed Seacrest and fans all over the world that we would have to wait until Gaga was "born' to witness her 2011 Grammys spectacle. Stay tuned for updates!

Continue reading on Examiner.com: Lady Gaga Egg Video: Gaga returns to ’womb’ for 2011 Grammys red carpet (PHOTO) - Tucson Celebrity Headlines | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/celebrity-headlines-in-tucson/lady-gaga-egg-video-gaga-returns-to-the-womb-for-grammys-red-carpet-video#ixzz1Dx4z3el2

New York In May!

2011-02-09T08:03:00.002-05:00

Don't miss the new notice in the right hand column about THE event in New York City in May. This promises to be a fantastic event and a great opportunity for those of us who live in the U.S.

Looking forward to meeting our group in person.

Sneak Peeks of "Womb Twin Survivors - The Lost Twin in the Dream of the Womb" Book

2011-01-31T17:21:00.002-05:00

How exciting - you don't have to wait until March for the release of Althea Hayton's new book, "Womb Twin Survivors - The Lost Twin in the Dream of the Womb"!

Every day she is posting a little sneak peek into each Chapter, on her blog:
http://wombtwin-survivors.blogspot.com/

And the blog version means you can post comments and get answers...before the book is even released!

In true womb twin form, no doubt there will already be lots of interaction before the birth of that book!

Check it out....
http://wombtwin-survivors.blogspot.com/

When a Twin is "Gone" but Still Alive...interesting parallel

2011-01-20T14:24:00.002-05:00

Womb Twin Survivors suffer such pain due to separation from their twin (and from their twin nature).

Here's a peek at what happens to a twin, when their twin is shut down with ADD and institutionalized, yet still alive. We think we have it bad, and we do, but this must be so difficult in similar yet different ways...

Interesting that this member of the family shuts down the ability to communicate, while the rest of the family is all about communication/publishing. Alpha/beta?

Twin Alone, Disconnected but Not Lost
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/books/10book.html?scp=1&sq=Twin%20Alone&st=cse

"It can always be better and it can always be worse"

Monica

COMING OUT: a "version" of cross-gender Womb Twinning?

2011-01-19T13:37:00.002-05:00

This story is a womb twin survivor story - about a boy who was born into a world that supports his need to hold on to his lost female twin. We womb twin survivors usually don't get this sort of support so here's an example of how the world is changing. I wonder how we would fare if we were "out" and supported by our parents, families, communities - would we be happier for living that truth or are we ultimately happier letting go of our twinness and moving toward accepting our individuality and becoming a self? Please read this entire story, it is our story.

http://moms.today.com/_news/2011/01/03/5738901-the-mom-of-a-princess-boy-speaks-out-?gt1=43001

Happier New Year, Womb Twins!

2011-01-05T16:58:00.002-05:00

Now that we have the holidays behind us and have started the New Year, let's take a moment to remind ourselves of the progress we have made in 2010 (respectively and collectively) and reflect on what where we might like to be in our healing at this time next year.

No doubt, 2011 will be full of healing miracles for womb twins of all ages - it is a twin number, after all!

We are gaining momentum (I can feel it, it is becoming palpable)so be sure to ride the wave in whatever way you can - there was a time not so long ago when this wasn't even possible. Fortunately, we no longer need to suffer alone and none of our stories are too weird to figure out and heal. Put it out there in the womb twin community and see what comes back. Contribute some personal wisdom. Ask a dumb question. Ask a brilliant question. Whatever you do, don't think you have to stay stuck anymore!

On behalf of Womb Twin US, I wish you all a productive year ahead and invite you to contact me for help or advice. I care about ALL of YOU and want to help you reach your goals this year, even if you aren't sure what they are. Let's figure it out together!

Yours,
Monica

A milestone Womb Twin Day 2010 - Healing is Possible!

2010-12-23T12:14:00.001-05:00

Womb Twin Day is Dec 21. I was born prematurely with my twin on Dec 22, my twin then died Dec 23. This has been an interesting three days!

I am pleased to be at the end of my healing journey and quite shocked at how strong and happy I feel this year at this time - for the first time ever. It feels like I crossed over into living! I feel like a strong self and that allows so much to fall into place, relieving me of so much work I used to have to do just to feel ok. So this year on womb twin day, I chose to honor not just my womb twin but my self too (we're an identical pair after all).

My twin's spirit plays games with me, one of her favorites is to put copper pennies in my path (psychic mediums say spirits can move copper easily because it is the best for conducting electricity - thus the term "pennies from heaven"). Lately, since our birthday time was approaching, pennies have turned up everywhere. I used to pick them up to get close to her but now I don't need to - however, on womb twin day, I did pick one up. I looked closely at it and thought about my twin Jennifer.

Staring at the copper penny, I noticed at the top it said "In God We Trust" and I thought about how trust and truth are so crucial to womb twin survivors. We need truth so badly. Then I noticed the word "Liberty" and I recalled how that word has popped up everywhere I look lately (since I live in NYC where the Statue of Liberty overlooks our harbor). Then I realized why...I feel liberated from the sadness of a confusing womb story because I've explored it and have no more questions and can put it in its rightful place now. (my healing entailed reclaiming & releasing an early triplet & quadruplet, in addition to the twin who died after birth)

On womb twin day I realized I am liberated...I am me...I am truly happy to be alive and live my life. With that, I thanked my twin and reassured her that I am now fine and don't need her assistance any more. I wished her well on her journey and resumed my own. We'll see if she does move on now. At least she knows I'm ok here without her now and that is my womb twin/birthday gift to us.

(I didn't feel a need to honor my triplet & quad on womb twin day because they were lost very early and the pain is resolved)

Today is the day my sweet 2 lb. Jennifer passed away many years ago and I no longer feel sad at all. I TRUST that all lined up just the way it was meant to and am enjoying LIBERTY from pain and loss. What a victory!

Happy Holidays to all you strong, courageous and undeniably special Womb Twin Survivors! I hope you had a meaningful Womb Twin Day and would love to hear about it...

Observe Womb Twin Day - December 21st

2010-12-19T11:17:00.003-05:00

Let us all connect in memory of our special womb twins on December 21, 2010 in observance of Womb Twin Day.

A special day for us all to take time to honor and remember our twins, in whatever way seems right.

Knowing we are not alone, in solidarity for the 1 in 10 of us who share our plight, let us take this day to also honor our uniqueness as a womb twin survivor and also to honor our twin nature!

In celebration of all the special Womb Twins around the world...and having a holiday we can relate to..

Happy Holidays!

Womb Twin Survivor presentation at the Prenatal & Perinatal Psychology and Health Conference Tomorrow!

2010-11-11T21:57:00.005-05:00

How exciting...Althea Hayton and Brent Babcock, pioneers of womb loss/vanishing twin research, are presenting tomorrow at the APPPH Conference in California. See the link... What an interesting line-up, let's hope all goes well as these groundbreaking topics are discussed.

http://www.birthpsychology.com/congress/2010/concurrent_sessions_all.html

All best wishes to Althea & Brent tomorrow!
All us womb twin survivors are with you in spirit and are grateful for this opportunity to get our condition known.
Thank you for traveling to CA for this presentation and enjoy beautiful Asilomar...

(Hopefully the NYC Workshop brochures arrived there for distribution in time!?!)

Wombtwin Workshop

2010-11-02T21:06:00.005-04:00

A WORKSHOP IN NEW YORK CITY

MAY 7^TH2011

Of interest to wombtwin survivors (known or suspected) and therapists who may be working with wombtwin survivors or who believe they may have wombtwin survivors among their clients.

Thetime: Saturday May 7th, 2011

10am to 5pm

The place: NYC – Midtown location TBA

Althea Hayton, Project Director of Wombtwin.com, will be visiting New York this May for the third

workshop of its kind in the USA. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to meet Althea, hear her story and learn about the healing path for this virtually unknown condition.

There will be an illustrated presentation, explaining the basics of twinning and the many ways in which a twin may be lost during pregnancy. New research results will be revealed, showing the psychological profile of the wombtwin survivor.

This will be a personal and professional opportunity to explore the ways in which prebirth experiences are re-enacted in born life. You will also learn how many psychological difficulties such as hoarding, eating disorders and some personality disorders may be related to the loss of a twin before birth.

For details and reservations

call Monica at 347-683-4063

For more information go to www.wombtwin.com

Click Here for a link to the registration/indication form.

Note to Self: Stop Suffering!

2010-10-27T14:58:00.002-04:00

As I progress down the healing path rapidly now, I sense I am in the final stages.
I just know (as I have for months now...!)
Is this it? Am I there? Looms visibly

So much less anxiety and more faith in the flow of things.
Understanding replaces anguish.
Trusted lifelong coping mechanisms become more & more redundant.
Old cornerstone habits must be jettisoned in favor of new ways of being.

On the subject of healing old habits –
if the bomb is defused, why still behave like it’s detonated?
I am finding the habit of suffering - simply for the sake of suffering - is indeed hard to break!

When you’ve suffered alone and felt different your whole life,
then find your way and get on with the business of being a Self -
It’s a lot to learn to step into ONE’s power and STAY in it.

To be the Alpha and integrate all that you are into that, rather than play the Alpha/Beta switch game, is another example of "be careful what you wish for" and I'm so excited to be able to say that! It has taken years to get here!!

But staying in Alpha means being whole and productive without dropping off,
which is new ground for black hole Beta’s to consistently stay in.
And this requires tremendous self esteem, allowing one's self to be just that - one's self.

Although that is a "given" to most people, it is something I've had to train for like an athlete and still must remind myself of and grant permission to be.

But this also requires the retraining of the self to STOP SUFFERING!

So I invite you to: Stop the default programming that believes in order for something to live, something has to die. Stop limiting and say yes, I can. Stop disappearing into Beta. Stop the fragility of life and get on with it. By this I mean that, once you explore and understand yourself and see how your pre-born life shaped you from all angles, the emotional charge will lessen and you will give yourself permission to be more here now. Gladly there are some things we can let go of…and that is the lifelong habit of suffering!

We must remind ourselves of this since we were traumatized by our losses pre-cognitively, we have to teach ourselves that life can mean non-suffering too since we’ve pretty much known nothing else. Even before we knew about memory, we were trying to forget a pain so great it could never be forgotten.
Nonetheless we must treat it like any other limitation: it can either make us or break us, it’s what we do with it that counts.

In our primitive womb world, there was a time with our womb twin(s)and then there was a time without our womb twin(s). We had to remember what to be afraid of in order to keep ourselves safe. It just was. This is woven into every cell of our being which is why we keep the dream of the womb alive.

I’m waking up from that dream now and really getting on with becoming a Self.
I am big and powerful and here.
Want to join me?
Weeeee! rather, Iiiiiiiiiiii!!!

A Book which recognizes the Impact of Intrauterine Life

2010-10-15T12:27:00.002-04:00

How exciting that the world is catching up with us womb twin survivors and recognizing the impact of our pre-born life. I once read a study from the UK years ago which showed that babies whose father's died in war were much more affected when the mother was given the news during pregnancy, than those whose mother's learned of the father's death after the birth. The affect of this stress being passed on from mother to baby in utero showed an alarming discrepancy in statistics -- these children showed a much higher incidence of school drop out, criminality, depression, etc.

http://manasasancharare.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/origins-how-the-nine-months-before-birth-shape-the-rest-of-our-lives/

Edward Albee, Playwright & Probable Womb Twin Survivor

2010-09-14T15:55:00.002-04:00

I didn't realize before why Albee is my favorite playwright - even though I saw his "The Play About The Baby" and my all time favorite film is "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" - according to this interview he wonders if he is a womb twin survivor!

Here's a review of his newest play now on in NYC called "Me, Myself and I"

A rare example of how womb twin survivors are becoming a known part of our culture.

Enjoy,
Monica

An evening of minor Albee, and minor menace
Preston Sadleir and Natalya Payne. Photo by Joan Marcus.
By Mark Sullivan

1:31 pm Sep. 14, 2010 | Tweet this article
Edward Albee’s play about a child whose very existence is in doubt has finally made it to New York.

We’re not talking about Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? or The Play About the Baby, although it’s true that those earlier works cover similar ground. This time it’s Me, Myself and I, which premiered a few years back in Princeton but is only now being staged on this side of the Hudson at Playwrights Horizons.

In both of Albee’s earlier offerings, an older couple taunts a younger couple about a child who just might be imaginary. In Me, Myself and I, the taunting comes from one of a set of adult identical twins, who announces to his mother and her live-in therapist that his brother isn’t real.

It’s a brilliant conceit, and just far enough removed from Albee’s past forays into existentialism that it seldom feels like ground that he has covered before. Could what this young man is saying be true? Is it possible that like George and Martha’s baby boy in Virginia Woolf, his twin has been a figment of his imagination, or that of his frowsy, blowsy mother? It seems entirely possible, since she clearly has trouble identifying her son (“Who are you?” she demands the moment he saunters into her bedroom). And the fact that she named both twins Otto seems unusual, to say the least.

The play percolates for a while as mother and son engage in some outrageously convoluted banter. (“I love both my sons,” the mother says with conviction, “whether they exist or not.”) But things never come to a boil, mostly because there’s never really any doubt that both Ottos exist. Once the second brother arrives and is clearly visible to everyone around him, Albee unwittingly turns off the gas. Director Emily Mann’s slow-motion pacing doesn’t help much, either.

The brothers (distinguished as OTTO and otto in the credits) are played by Zachary Booth and Preston Sadleir, who are made in hair and makeup to look strikingly similar. Booth is wonderfully smarmy as the instigator OTTO (“I’m not a very nice person,” he says several times with a mischievous grin), and Sadleir is appropriately bewildered as the victim otto. But Booth never gives us a sense of why it is so important whether he is twinless after all, and so Sadleir’s response seems overwrought.

What’s left is minor Albee, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s an often-hilarious play, especially in the second act when we meet otto’s girlfriend Maureen. She pleads for help from the portentously named Mother (Elizabeth Ashley), but the older woman seems to only be interested in the younger woman’s cultural heritage, first wondering whether she is Irish, them marveling that she is part Cherokee. When Maureen snaps at her, Mother acidly responds: “I don’t come from a small, wet island or a trail of tears.”

Ashley is funny from the first moments of the play, but is also unable to make it seem like anything that happens onstage matters very much. Sadly underused is the brilliant Brian Murray as her longtime companion. Murray was delightfully menacing in The Play About the Baby, but here has little to sink his teeth into. The performance is lively, but the character has no bite.

The same could be said for the play itself, which is not nearly as smart or shocking as it could be. As black comedies go, this one is quite pleasant. But I’m pretty sure that’s not what Albee had in mind.

Me, Myself & I is playing at Playwrights Horizons, 416 West 42nd Street (between Ninth & Tenth Avenues). For tickets call (212) 279-4200 or visit playwrightshorizons.org.

Goodbye Sweet JOY!!!

2010-08-28T15:03:00.000-04:00

2010-08-28T15:02:00.000-04:00

2010-08-28T14:59:00.000-04:00

2010-08-28T14:56:00.002-04:00

Birthday Party for Jo & Joy and Jo

2010-08-28T14:54:00.001-04:00

Here's a powerful example of the healng potential of ritual & symbols - Jo was so kind to send in these photos of her acknowledging her twin Joy this birthday.... ever
since she recently acknowledged that her cyst was not just a medical event but the loss of her twin. Jo celebrates her birthday as a twin with Jo, then subsequently celebrates her individual birthday as Jo, letting her twin Joy go with a balloon release.

Happy Birthday to our new member Jo!

2010-08-26T16:24:00.002-04:00

Wishing Jo & Joy a special birthday this year!
May your special day be filled with togetherness -- and then separateness as you release Joy and reclaim yourself in the new year ahead. Go JO!!!!

We're so glad you found us other womb twins, you will never be alone with this ever again! (and I think Joy knows, because she sent 2 people named Joy my way today, I haven't heard of that name in years, it must be her right?!? She knows you are moving toward individuality so she sent 2 as a twin joke, I get it...)

~Special birthday-flavored Twinlove to you Jo~

Love,
Monica

The Power of a Memorial Plaque

2010-08-17T22:39:00.000-04:00

Hello everyone....I have posted my IN MEMORY plaque of my precious twin sister Joy Elizabeth Sarah. I cannot find EXACT words to tell you how important this step was for me ! My daddy died in 2005 so his grave marker is a tangible sign for me of the place my daddy is now in comparison to his being here IN THE FLESH.

This IN MEMORY site has allowed me to complete the closure and tangibly honor the beloved memory of my sweet, sweet twin sister, Joy Elizabeth Sarah. I feel soooooooooo different.

It is sort of like I was much more able and willing to let her go knowing that letting her go IN NO WAY means she is forgotten,just like with my daddy.

My sweet precious sister now has a blessed funeral and marked memorial place all her own. And I will never forget her, EVER, However, I am now free to live my own life as the twin that survived and love her and love ME at the same time.

I hope this helps someone out there as much as it has helped me ...

Love and TWIN HUGS and TWIN JOY

Love, JO
(Josephine from St. Louis)

This News in from Althea on the Womb Twin Memorials

2010-08-12T15:42:00.000-04:00

Womb twin memorials

We have created a special site for every one of you to create a virtual memorial plaque for your womb twin. Each one looks like a little image sitting on a web page, barely visible, but when you click it it will enlarge as big as you want it, so you can see all the details.

A wonderful metaphor for the way your lost womb twin seems so insignificant to the casual disinterested observer, so that that no one believes such an early loss can possibly matter at all. It's not until we take a REALLY close look, that we are able to see all the details - then the true extent of this loss is made visible.

It takes about a week for your special memorial to be created; there is a whole gallery of special images to use, or you can create your own image and send it to us. All it takes is a donation to WombTwin.com and your memorial plaque will be up there for all the world to see.

We have developed the image of the birds, and they are all taking off into the blue...

It's just a trickle at the moment, but soon there will be hundreds..... It's here. Take a look for yourself.

Ceremony: This is for all of us! From Barbara Rosentha

2010-08-07T15:55:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I said goodbye to my fraternal boy twin. It was a most amazing spiritual and significant experience--words can't quite do it! Accompanied by amazing Monica, I had THE MOST incredible farewell ceremony for Carl!

I had decided three days earlier that I needed to say goodbye. We were done, it was over, and I was ready to move forward, and rapidly. The night before, I still had no idea how I wanted to say goodbye, but knew there was nothing tangible about him so there was nothing to tear, bury, burn, caress, hold. In the morning we bought lots of very healthy food for my house, to nourish myself, and one nice loaf of bread for Carl ("Old World Bread with Caraway (care-away!) Seeds").

We drove to a beautiful white, sandy beach in Connecticut on Long Island Sound, in perfect weather--sun, a nice breeze, clean white sand and wonderful beachy air. After hours of relaxing, sunbathing and dipping into the water, we decided it was the right time to say goodbye. As I was singing a song I chose in preparation for letting him go, two birds approached our blanket and sat in the sand, waiting. There was no time to finish that perfect song.

They were not going to leave--NOW was the time!

I jumped up, went to the edge of the water, and started throwing bits of bread. All the birds in the area heard about the free food and descended, eating happily as I was saying goodbye to Carl, running and dancing along the shore, laughing, throwing the bread, and watching all the LIFE that came to me as I was saying goodbye! I was nourishing living animals and giving Carl back to nature.

Saying goodbye to one feeble dead being brought huge, happy, appreciative life to me, and even if it was for a short time (until the bread was gone), it was so symbolic of being a magnet for much more life ahead, by letting go of one little life that was keeping me back.

PS Some of the birds lingered with us, sitting and resting on the sand with full tummies!

Hello From Jo

2010-08-06T15:40:00.000-04:00

SO....last night my husband Ken and I were talking about the fact that me and my twin sis Joy (if she were still here with me) will be 52 on August 27. For the very first time in my life, I am GOING TO CELEBRATE HER with ME....I have placed two purple flowers on my fireplace mantel for the month of August and I have a photo of a candle flame that I have attached to her name.

What I found out, though, is that there was a very HARD step to proceed this ability to invite into my present. I HAD TO MOVE HER OUT OF THE PAST PERCEPTION THAT I WAS KEEPING HER IN !!!!!

I was still holding on to that hope that I will FIND HER somewhere here on earth. SHE IS NOT HERE. She is an angel. It hurt but I let her go. In letting her GO I seem to have FOUND her in some new way. Not sure what all this means yet. VERY VERY NEW FEELINGS but I like the direction this is going. Does this make any sense?

LOVE AND HUGS ABUNDANT,

JO

Busy Busy Busy!

2010-08-06T08:40:00.002-04:00

Welcome Jo and Anonymous,
Thank you for sharing your stories, it took tremendous courage and I'm certain this is the start of a whole new beginning for you, and I do mean YOU! By exploring your lost others and making them real, you will then be able to let them go and reclaim your Individuality, which will then hopefully allow you to find peace with all this. All in due time - just as each grieving process is unique, so is each healing path.

We look forward to supporting you on your journey, and I do want to write more in depth to each of you later, however at the moment I am off to help a womb twin do a "Letting Go" ritual! In the past 4 months we have explored her newly discovered womb twin - who turned out to be a womb triplet - and she is now ready to let him go. She used to say "I'm not ready to let him go" and so we filled her up with him as much as possible, then one day this week she said "I've got to get rid of him now, he's getting in my way"...now that's progress!

So...lots of healing work all around today. Let this momentum inspire you until I can share more later.

For now, welcome to the group and don't be shy! You have arrived in the right place, finally. Are you ready to be understood? :-)

Problem Solved--We hope!

2010-08-05T12:57:00.000-04:00

Monica and I have had our heads together over the problem with leaving a comment, and think we have it fixed! Put two great minds together and what do you get? Half a brain!

Anyway, we are now ready--again--for our super fantastic helpful members to comment on the posts. This gives valuable feedback to us all in our journey, so we encourage you to do so.

Before you hit Post the Comment, however, just in case, go ahead and highlight what you write and copy. That way if it doesn't work the first time, at least you won't have to restart all over again.

Thanks for your patience! Now, let's get busy supporting each other!

My Story: by Anonymous

2010-08-05T11:48:00.000-04:00

Today, I received this message from a Womb Twin Survivor who asked that their story be told to the group, but asked to be anonymous for personal reasons. (We always grant that right!)
It is a powerful story I'm sure many of us can identify with. Please give Anonymous any feedback and guidance you have. HOWEVER: until we get our problems with our Comments section resolved, please email your response to either Monica Hudson or me (Sylvia Dickey Smith at sds(at)suddenlink(dot)com and we will paste it as a new blog. We've lost too many neat comments to Jo's story. We don't want to lose any more. Also, if you are one of the ones who commented to Jo and it didn't post, PLEASE rewrite it and send to either of us by email and we will post it as a blog post.
We are here for each other, and will get these messages up, one way or another--I'm not a Taurus the bull for nothing! LOL

My Story: by Anonymous

We were born in a hospital in a far flung suburb of a rust belt city in the early 70's. My Brother was the first born, he died extremely shortly after birth of GBS (Group B Strep). The wholly inadequate explanation for my survival is that my Brother carried the bulk of the infection out of the birth-canal.

My parents never spoke of my Brother until my teen years. I grew up feeling different than others. I had (and still have) a profound sense that I have lost something very important. I got along very well with other children, but never felt that I "fit in" anywhere. I am terrified of abandonment, yet I want to be alone.

When I think about my Brother, it feels like he is there with me. I have the feeling of a presence that is stronger than reality. I'm a very skeptical person. However, there is something very paranormal about the feelings I have and some events associated with that feeling.

My Mother and Father refuse to acknowledge that I should have an issue with the loss of my Brother. They believe the whole thing was some type of medical event. My Brother wasn't even afforded the basic right to a name. There is no tombstone... no marker of his existence. I speak with my parents daily, even though I live far from them. But, I feel a deep hatred toward them and my other siblings.

In my late 30's I am just beginning therapy to address the grief and guilt issues that I have wrestled with since my childhood. I have struggled with issues of temper, anger, addiction, alienation and depression. I have trouble being a part of any "group," an overwhelming desire to succeed, I am a perfectionist, I have an overwhelming dislike of organized religion and feel anger toward doctors. Despite all of this, I have a moderate amount of success in society. I don't believe that anyone outside of my family has ever perceived my inner conflict.

Still, despite it all. I am here. My Brother is not. I can't help but think, it could have been me... and I wouldn't have even existed. Who said "God doesn't play dice."

Having Problems Leaving A Comment?

2010-08-04T15:00:00.000-04:00

I know how frustrating it is to go to all the effort to write a nice long blog only to have it disappear when you try to post it! Been there--done that!

What I have learned is with Blogger, you almost have to use a Google email address to insure you don't hit this brick wall. Using a Google ID when you comment will work every time--at least that's my experience.

So, we truly do hope if you don't have one, that you do that now.

We REALLY want to hear your thoughts, feelings, reactions and questions!

Jo is waiting with baited breath to get feedback on her story. I did let her know it isn't that folks haven't tried, its that they are running into the same problem posting comments.

I encourage you to get a Google email account so you can comment with confidence it won't get lost in the ethers. If you don't know how to set one up, just type into your browser: Setting Up a Google Email address and you'll get hits that will walk you through the process.

Jo Shares Her Story

2010-08-03T10:43:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I sent out a newsletter to all our associate members with a press release of the international womb twin conference coming in October. As a result of the newsletter, I've made a new friend with one of our blog followers/associates. We have emailed since then, and Jo has given me permission to post her story on our blog. I share it with you now, and invite you to add a comment to the post. Jo so eagerly seeks to learn of other's experiences that might help her make sense of her own. Here it is, in her own words.

Hello Sylvia !!!!! I do want to chat....that sounds wonderful .......so here I am.......
I am really immersed currently in the mystery of my twin sister Joy as I mentioned earlier because August 27th will be our 52nd birthday. Joy was adsorbed into me. (Fetus in Fetu as a teratoma). She was with me until my 30th year. They discovered her then and had to remove her because she was growing from the pregnancy hormones from my two girls (two separate births..Lauren is now 26 and Carolyn is now 23). I did not know she was my twin until 2008, my 50th birthday. The medical world told me it was a tumor. I saw a wonderful energy therapist and she confirmed what I felt I always knew, it was NOT a tumor, it was my sister, her name is Joy and she was my identical twin sister.

Then I found Althea and wombtwin.com and it has taken me these two years to process and think and decide and become brave about delving in to what it all means to me to have a twin sister I have never physically seen. And what it means to be the twin that survived.

At first, when I found out, I was ecstatic to know I was not crazy. So much of my life made so much more sense in light of the discovery of Joy.

Now I seem to be super sad and I miss her ALOT. I want to talk to her. Why did she leave me?
I wish she was here.

I am starting to ask some of the questions I was not ready to ask two years ago.

I really struggle with knowing she was inside of me for 30 years and then had to be scraped out by surgeons. I sort of feel responsible for her death---sort of like in order to save me they had to kill her. Not long after the surgery to deal with her removal back in 1989 I plunged into major depression. I finally received treatment in 1995. Since then I have learned so so so so so much. Yet I feel I have so so so so so much more TO learn.

What have you read in terms of books or articles?

I am reading UNTWINNED at the moment and found a new book on amazon.com today by a Dr. Babcock entitled My Twin Vanished? Did Yours?

I feel like SCREAMING into the computer screen to this Dr. Babcock guy and saying YES,, YES YES YES I LOST MY TWIN TOOOOOOO SO WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT IT NOW ??????????
So many new feelings ?????????????????????????????????

Thank you for offering your help. I need it.

***

To our followers: Please feel free to send me your story and I will be happy to post it on the blog, but only with your permission.

If you are not a WTS, but have questions you'd like to ask, please feel free to do so in the comment section, or email us. We're here for you

First International Conference Weekend

2010-08-01T15:35:00.000-04:00

PRESS RELEASE

The first international conference weekend for womb twin survivors to be held in the UK will be held in St Albans, Hertfordshire October 1st -3rd, organised by WombTwin.com, a non-profit organisation providing information help and support for womb twin survivors in the UK and around the world.

Womb twin survivors are the sole survivors of a twin or multiple pregnancy.
Althea Hayton, founding Director of WombTwin.com, says: "One in every ten people is a womb twin survivor but only a few of them realise. The loss of one twin in pregnancy or around birth, leaving a sole survivor, is a very common occurrence but unfortunately little known and rarely discussed. We intend to put that right."

Who are the womb twin survivors? They are twin-less twins whose co-twin died during pregnancy or around birth; survivors of a "vanishing twin" pregnancy; people who were told that they once had a twin; survivors of a suspected miscarriage; survivors of an abortion attempt; people with a dermoid cyst, teratoma, fetus in fetu or even a parasitic twin. They are people who have had a lifelong feeling of being a twin or who have been diagnosed by a therapist as a womb twin survivor.

"My research has shown that people with a fear of abandonment, or haunted by a strange sense of vulnerability or who have always been searching for something all their lives, may be womb tun survivors," says Althea, "but they are unable to find any evidence that their mother was carrying twins. But still that vague feeling of a twin is there always, deep down."

Friday 1st October begins the conference with an open meeting, free if charge for anyone interested to come and learn more. Althea will be there to welcome everyone, and Claudia Pinheiro, the mother or of Maria, a seven year old womb twin survivor, will be coming from Portugal to introduce a new initiative to help young womb twin survivors. She and her seven year old daughter have worked together to create a workbook for children with illustrations created by Maria herself. Entry by free ticket only.

On Saturday 2nd October there is a full programme of talks and workshops. organised as an "Open Space" event, including a presentation by Alfred Austermann from Germany, about his new book "The Surviving Twin Syndrome".

"Other workshops will be about clutter, food problems and sexuality issues, which are common among womb twin survivors," says Althea. "and I will be presenting the latest research results from my womb twin survivors project.

On Sunday 3rd October there will be three workshops about therapy, healing and memorial. The AGM of wombtwin.com will also take place.

The venue is All Saints Pastoral Centre, London Colney. Accommodation is available in single or twin rooms. All meals provided. day places also available. Entry to Friday meeting by free ticket only

More details on the web site www.wombtwin.com

To reserve your place, email info@wombtwin.com for details about how to book and pay online or by post.

Contact:
Conference Secretary, WombTwin.com Ltd.

PO Box 396
St Albans
Herts
AL3 6NE

+44 (0)1727 761719

A Birthday Film for Wombtwin.com

2010-07-18T11:35:00.003-04:00

This cute little film demonstrates the bond social creatures have & need - womb twins in particular...reminding us how we have used "twin replacements" etc. to take the place of our womb mates in a humorous way!

http://sanssouciblogs.multiply.com/video/item/93/This_will_make_your_week

Happy Birthday Wombtwin.com - You and Althea Hayton have been our lady in the red coat, standing by unconditionally to witness and understand our invisible bonds in ways we never thought possible...thank you for existing and thriving, just as we womb twin survivors around the world have with your help.

((((((HAPPY 3rd BIRTHDAY WOMBTWIN.COM)))))))

2010-07-16T12:00:00.002-04:00

We all have deeply personal reasons to be happy about the birth of Wombtwin.com - it has been THE key to unlock the lock that the world hadn't thought about...that is, until Althea Hayton came on the scene.

Let's light a candle and make a special wish (and maybe a birthday gift in the form of a donation?)for Wombtwin.com for the coming year and while we're at it...make a wish for ourselves on this healing path for the coming year.

Let's all Celebrate our connectedness tomorrow - this is one birthday where we don't need feel alone!

It takes great courage to be born and this initiative is no different.
please read more below from Althea:

The birth of Wombtwin.com, 17th July 2007

In 2002, Althea Hayton realised she was a womb twin survivor and began her long road to healing. On the way she learned a lot about her own psychological reaction to the pre-birth loss of her twin, and she wondered firstly if there were many other people like herself and secondly if they were having the same experiences.

So she began seven years of research. In 2003 she created the first of many questionnaire templates, built a web site and began to exchange emails with womb twin survivors from around the world. Then she learned that for every pair of intact twin born in the world, there are ten womb twin survivors (ie. people whose twin died either during pregnancy or around birth.)

This was an astonishing number of people, and surely there must be ways to be able to identify them and help them - for she knew that they needed help. That became Althea mission in life.

In April 2007, Althea was given a Millennium Award from UnLtd in London, which enabled her to set up a non-profit organisation with members, which was launched on July 17th. A year later, in June 2008 she held the first , one-day Womb Twin conference in London.

By the second birthday in July 2009, there was in existence an anthology of papers about womb twin survivors and a collection of stories written by womb twin survivors themselves. By then, Althea had a collection of 500 questionnaires, which she handed to the Statistics Department of her local University for analysis. She was able to publish a psychological profile of womb twin survivors, based on this research analysis.

In 2009, leading up to the third birthday, WombTwin.com held their first Open Space Event and conference in St Albans

There are now 23 members of WombTwin.com living in the UK and Europe, and 60 associate members living elsewhere in the world, mainly in the USA. There are now five directors of the company. William Bingley, one-time Legal Director of MIND and himself a twin, is now Patron of the Company.

The web presence for Womb Twin is now beginning to expand. There is a new WombTwin web site, created by Kevin Beynon, who is working for WombTwin as a volunteer.

On this site there are pages edited by people around the world.

Womb Twin has a regular monthly newsletter GEMINI VOICES, which is delivered by email to 172 people each month by MailChimp. This contains the latest news of events and developments in the company and also Althea's Womb Twin Survivors Project.

There is a Yahoo forum created specially for WombTwin members, who receive a free gift on joining and who are given a £15 discount on the fees for the annual conference.

We now have several Womb Twin web sites around the world:

Althea's blog about the womb twin project
WombTwin Ireland
WombTwin US

WombTwin Portugal

WombTwin World Wide

WombTwin Belgium

Wombwin.com Ltd has a page on Facebook.

There is a Twitter page too.

On the WombTwin website there is a shop selling items showing the WombTwin logo, which is now widely recognised as a sign to womb twin survivors around the world that information, help and support is now available, from a variety of sources.

There is no longer any need for womb twin survivors to feel different, alone and misunderstood. Help is available and they can know they are not crazy - they are normal womb twin survivors.

To spread the healing message further, Althea began in September 2009 to write up the seven years of her research, using the hundreds of stories and questionnaires that have been sent to her by email. To date she has 22 of the 30 chapters in draft of her new book “ Womb Twin Survivors: the Lost Twin in the Dream of the Womb,” to be published by Wren Publications on 4th January 2011.

For more details

WombTwin.com Ltd
PO Box 396
St Albans
Hertfordshire
England
AL3 6NE

mailto:info@wombtwin.com

http://www.wombtwin.com/pdfs/WTbirthday17.7.pdf

Trying Out a New Blog Template

2010-07-09T19:45:00.000-04:00

If you all are wondering what's going on with the new blog design, it is because the old one--although beautiful, had its limitations. I found this design today on blogger and thought I'd try it out and see how it goes. I think it is easier to read and the whole video is now viewable!

If you like it, let us know by commenting on this blog post. If we get no comments, Monica and I will always wonder.

Widow lives with corpses of Husband & Twin

2010-07-08T15:43:00.002-04:00

This is womb twin syndrome at it's extreme...interesting that her twin got to stay in the house but her husband had to stay in the garage. Quite a shocking story, thanks for sending it Barbara M.

By MICHAEL RUBINKAM (AP) – 2 days ago

WYALUSING, Pa. — The 91-year-old widow lived by herself in a tumbledown house on a desolate country road. But she wasn't alone, not really, not as long as she could visit her husband and twin sister.
No matter they were already dead. Jean Stevens simply had their embalmed corpses dug up and stored them at her house — in the case of her late husband, for more than a decade — tending to the remains as best she could until police were finally tipped off last month.
Much to her dismay.
"Death is very hard for me to take," Stevens told an interviewer.
As state police finish their investigation into a singularly macabre case — no charges have been filed — Stevens wishes she could be reunited with James Stevens, her husband of nearly 60 years, who died in 1999, and June Stevens, the twin who died last October.
But their bodies are with the Bradford County coroner now, at least temporarily off limits to the woman who loved them best. District Attorney Daniel Barrett said Tuesday that Stevens plans to build a crypt on the property.
"If she does that, the bodies will be released for that purpose," he said. "Otherwise they will be re-interred."
From time to time, stories of exhumed bodies are reported, but rarely do those involved offer an explanation. Jean Stevens, seeming more grandmother than ghoul, holds little back as she describes what happened outside this small town in northern Pennsylvania's Endless Mountains.
She knows what people must think of her. But she had her reasons, and they are complicated, a bit sad, and in their own peculiar way, sweet.
Dressed smartly in a light blue shirt and khaki skirt, silver hoops in her ears, her white hair swept back and her brown eyes clear and sharp, she offers a visitor a slice of pie, then casts a knowing look when it's declined. "You're afraid I'll poison you," she says.
On a highboy in the corner of the dining room rests a handsome, black-and-white portrait of Jean, then a stunner in her early 20s, and James, clad in his Army uniform. It was taken after their 1942 marriage but before his service in World War II, in which he fought in the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, James worked at a General Electric Corp. plant in Liverpool, N.Y., then as an auto mechanic. He succumbed to Parkinson's disease on May 21, 1999.
Next to that photo there is a smaller color snapshot of Jean and June, taken when they were in their late 80s.
In many ways, Jean shared a closer bond with her twin than her husband.
Though June lived more than 200 miles away in West Hartford, Conn., they talked by phone several times a week, and June wrote often. The twins — who, as it happened, married brothers — were honored guests at the 70th reunion of the Camptown High School Class of 1937.
Then, last year, June was diagnosed with cancer. She was in a lot of pain when Jean came to visit. The sisters shared a bed, and Jean rubbed her back. "I'm real glad you're here," June said.
On Oct. 3, June died. She was buried in her sister's backyard — but not for long.
"I think when you put them in the (ground), that's goodbye, goodbye," Stevens said. "In this way I could touch her and look at her and talk to her."
She kept her sister, who was dressed in her "best housecoat," on an old couch in a spare room off the bedroom. Jean sprayed her with expensive perfume that was June's favorite.
"I'd go in, and I'd talk, and I'd forget," Stevens said. "I put glasses on her. When I put the glasses on, it made all the difference in the world. I would fix her up. I'd fix her face up all the time."
She offered a similar rationale for keeping her husband on a couch in the detached garage. James, who had been laid to rest in a nearby cemetery, wore a dark suit, white shirt and blue knitted tie.
"I could see him, I could look at him, I could touch him. Now, some people have a terrible feeling, they say, 'Why do you want to look at a dead person? Oh my gracious,'" she said.
"Well, I felt differently about death."
Part of her worries that after death, there's ... nothing. "Is that the grand finale?" But then she gets up at night and gazes at the stars in the sky and the deer in the fields, and she thinks, "There must be somebody who created this. It didn't come up like mushrooms."
So she is ambivalent about God and the afterlife. "I don't always go to church, but I want to believe," Stevens said.
Dr. Helen Lavretsky, a psychiatry professor at UCLA who researches how the elderly view death and dying, said people who aren't particularly spiritual or religious often have a difficult time with death because they fear that death is truly the end.
For them, "death doesn't exist," she said. "They deny death."
Stevens, she said, "came up with a very extreme expression of it. She got her bodies back, and she felt fulfilled by having them at home. She's beating death by bringing them back."
There was another reason that Stevens wanted them above ground.
She is severely claustrophobic, and so was her sister; she was horrified that the bodies of her loved ones would spend eternity in a casket in the ground. "That's suffocation to me, even though you aren't breathing," she said.
So she said she had them dug up, both within days of burial.
She managed to escape detection for a long time. The neighbors who mowed her lawn and took her grocery shopping either didn't know or didn't tell. Otherwise forthcoming, Stevens is vague when asked about who exhumed the bodies and who knew of her odd living arrangement. She blames a relative of her late husband's for calling the authorities about the corpses.
"I think that is dirty, rotten," she said.
State police haven't said who retrieved the bodies but will soon present their findings to Barrett, the district attorney. A decision on charges is expected as early as Friday.
Authorities are looking into several possible violations, including misdemeanor abuse of a corpse, Barrett said.
Stevens has talked extensively with both the police and Bradford County Coroner Tom Carman, who calls it a "very, very bizarre case."
But the coroner has nothing but kind things to say about the woman at the center of it.
"I got quite an education, to say the least. She's 100 percent cooperative — and a pleasure to talk to," Carman said. "But as far as her psyche, I'll leave that to the experts."

Beta Duality and Switching

2010-06-30T21:53:00.002-04:00

On the topic of duality and alpha/beta and switching etc. I have arrived at the belief that the constant duality we find ourselves in isn't just a twin phenomena, it is due to us having the dual intrauterine relationships with both mother and twin. We were split between their feelings, thoughts, effects on us from the very moment of our conception. Think of the competition of that allegiance, given mother was primal host organism yet twin was a vital primal part of us. It was an and/and and in cases of multiples, even more. Perhaps this is the explanation for high occurrences of beta and duality struggles in the lives of womb twins, when we are placed here to be the alpha survivor...dare I say....individuals. I mean, why can't we just accept our power and be happy about it, after all we are strong and we did make it? The fact that we can't pick one way - slipping back & forth into alpha/beta vs. just accepting our alphaness - is also this duality imprint. It's everywhere.

My theory (as of today!) is that we are the alpha survivor of the twin pair, yet simultaneously we are beta dependent to mother...because the twin dies off (or will - ala "the pact") and consequently so does our alpha role -- and the mother relationship continues, we continue the beta role to host organism simply out of survival and it becomes a lifelong coping complex in all areas just because that imprint helped us live. This is also a "switch" in roles like we have been discussing. I also think thatBeta-ness also comes from the traumatic stress awareness of our twins' survival struggles....e.g. "uh oh, I better be quiet about my twin and play beta to mom so I can live." From there, our survivor guilt gets distorted, amplified, causing the romanticized lens we see our twins thru - rather than forgetting them and prizing the practical choice of just having mother for survival. Because the grief energy has to go somewhere so the baby can survive, that's where it goes - to propping up the twin (we want to keep their memory alive out of guilt and denial) and out of not being the only one, which is a new vulnerable feeling (downplaying Self). This then gets played out in every detail of the womb twin survivors life in every distorted version of it and this begins before we are even born!

I never considered the maternal bond much until I healed my twin stuff, then encountered this whole other layer that makes sense to process. I connected with my mother's feelings of dread and not wanting the pregnancy and also felt the intrauterine effects of her diet, attitude, smoking etc. It felt so terrible being unwanted that I identified too strongly with it and felt like I shouldn't exist but the bottoming out I did served the purpose of grieving that too. It felt like I hit the pavement and couldn't go any lower...so the only thing to do from there was get up. I wasn't going to lay down and die! That's when I drew a circle around it and left it over there.... Letting the beta who shouldn't exist die out so the alpha survivor who is here (and fully capable!) could be ushered in. I'm still working on it but this was a necessary step in the long hard road to healing.

Womb Twin Survivors and Wisdom

2010-06-18T09:00:00.000-04:00

We think about 'being wise' or making wise decisions. We wish for our children to make wise choices, and when we do, we usually mean we hope they don't do something stupid, thereby getting themselves, and often us, in trouble.

I suggest when we do something stupid, that behavior starts in the brain--it starts with what we're thinking. What we tell our self about what we want to do and why we want to do it. It is often not rational. This ends up having more to do with our brain and what we're thinking than it does with our heart, but true wisdom means so much more than being smart.

To me, being wise is having an excellent heart.

Wisdom--or having an excellent heart-- forces our actions to be borne of strong character, a healthy spirit, and it embraces the strength and the breadth of our character. An excellent heart leads us to make decisions and take actions unswayed by praise--or censure.

Think about your decision-making. Look at how your actions are swayed, or unswayed, by praise or censure, or perhaps even as a result of your loss of your twin. Evaluate your wisdom--your heart. Tough to do, and be honest.

Might we begin to see wisdom as one who perseveres in following the correct way of life, unswayed by praise and censure? When we are, we are a truly wise person.

Switched before Birth

2010-06-16T12:04:00.002-04:00

Being a womb twin survivor, I had grown accustomed to the term “slipping into a black hole” and to the idea of switching alpha/beta roles with one’s vanished twin – these concepts and behaviors were just as ordinary to me as blinking.

Then….something quite startling happened, to shake this up and make me realize its true meaning beyond my previous level of comprehension. I would like to share it, in case it is helpful to others to know about this subtle distinction which turned out to be hugely powerful in understanding my story.

It was during an NET session (neuro emotional technique), I was re-experiencing my gestational reality from conception to birth. Like other womb twins, I was finding this modality to be a helpful tool for accessing and releasing womb memories & emotions, but I wasn’t prepared for what I experienced during the 5th month in utero.

(note: my twin & I were born premature at 6 months, she died the next day)

My twin & I made a pact – she would go and I would stay. She would wait long enough for me to be healthy enough to survive, which turned out to be one more month - at which point she asphyxiated on her cord and went into distress causing our birth and then I never saw her again. We did say goodbye, which was incredibly comforting to know. But there in the 5th month when we were making our little agreement, I actually felt myself switch roles with her.
I BECAME HER SO THAT I WOULDN’T HAVE TO LOSE SOMEBODY!
In this NET session, I fully recalled myself switching places (as twins do) with my twin in the womb – as if I got up, went over to her side, stepped into her body, zipped up my Jennifer suit and became her, the beta, at that point.

My journal entry after the session reads:
5 months in utero = paralyzed will, blocked. Breakthrough: I thought I suffered from low or no self esteem but I realized that I have plenty of self esteem. I thought I didn’t because I switched roles with her out of survivor guilt! I knew she wouldn’t stay so I became her so as not to lose her. I went Beta!

It was amazing to re-witness myself doing this because it speaks to two things:

1) the power of survivor guilt is so strong, that even a defenseless unborn baby knows how to defend itself from it.

2) slipping into the beta space isn’t just a temporary thing for me like I thought, it is every thing to me. I’ve been there my whole life, living her weakened beta state so that I wouldn’t have to feel survival or guilt. I bypassed it from day zero!

So if I have lived a black hole beta life all this time, my momentary lapses downward must have been a “blacker hole” – no wonder it felt so horrendous!

Further, this realization brought a deeper understanding about my clutter. I realized that in becoming her in the womb – there still remained a body next to me (my real body which was one pound bigger than her body) to take the place of the emptiness which would eventually represent my lost twin (surprising that I could anticipate that and recall all this from my body memory at 5 months gestation, not from my current mind. I could feel the difference!) Because I was already traumatized by her impending death, even though we agreed to it and she was still there alive, the dynamic had already been activated – I would be the little helpless beta surrounded by the placebo-like comfort of a bigger twin who wouldn’t disappear. This was my comfort zone and this is still being played out today in the form of clutter.

For example: A few weeks ago, my son left our home for an extended stay with his Dad. Ever since he left, these womb dynamics have played out exactly - I barely exist/function there (beta), don’t cook for myself (if I’m her, I have to be one pound lighter), fill up the empty space with clutter so there are signs of life, shrink down intimidated by the clutter that becomes bigger than me. It always seems so huge in my mind but when I finally get down to tackling it, it only takes 10 minutes to clean up. I build this ‘bigger than me’ thing in my head, and now I know why.

I am currently learning just how much of my life I have lived through my twin’s beta lens, while I learn to own MY self esteem and build on it so that I can fully step into my power. Who knew I was operating from my twin’s lack of self esteem all this time and how reassuring that I have my own. Now I have to learn how to use it and stay in it.

Alphaville here I come!

Walls Are Made to Go Around

2010-06-14T13:33:00.000-04:00

Everyone comes up against a wall every now and then. Even those who don't care to travel far from home. The trouble is, walls often discourage us--stop us in our tracks--and all too often make us turn around and go back the way we've come.

The next time you encounter a wall, instead of turning around, remember that on the other side of that wall is likely a wide expanse of opportunity.

Rather than letting the wall discourage you, use it to remind yourself of how much progress you've already made, and of potential opportunity for growth on the other side!

A Light goes on in Connecticut...

2010-06-07T12:06:00.004-04:00

This morning I received a call about another "new" womb twin survivor in Connecticut who is realizing later in her life, that this has affected her and she has had this revelation upon discovering our Womb Twin sites!
(with thanks to her loving boyfriend who is encouraging her to seek help--what a guy!)

It is truly an honor to witness such "light bulb" moments, for they are sacred portrals toward an authentic life. But more than that, I am absolutely giddy with delight, that there exists a healing path and that there are easier & easier ways for womb twin survivors to get on it.

I personally spent so many years trapped in the dark misery of aloneness - not able to articulate it, let alone find help - that this feeling of freakishness added tremendously to my load of anxiety & depression. It is my goal to help relieve such feelings of alienation from society by validating the feelings of womb twin survivors, helping womb twin survivors connect with others to feel less alone with it and to provide guidance on each unique healing process.

Getting to our truth, transforming personal understanding of self & world, alleviating anxiety, depression & self-sabotage and improving relationships are all steps on the journey toward living the life we came here to live - we just forgot because we loved & cared so much about our womb mates and it all got jumbled up.

Let me serve as a reminder to wake up from the dream of the womb and step up to the plate called Your Life - you have full permission!

Although there is a long way to go in the world with this journey, let this message be a reminder of how far we've already come. Althea lit a flame and it will become a raging fire!

For now, the porch light is on.....

Thanks East Coast Womb Twins!

2010-05-24T13:08:00.003-04:00

Wow - Saturday's event was exactly what we needed it to be...

Intense and "meaty" was the order of the day, yet that didn't stop us from going for 10 hours straight!

Special thanks to Barbara M for coming all the way from Washington DC and sharing so much.
Special thanks to Barbara R, our newest womb twin, for having the courage to join and work so hard. You've made tremendous progress in just six weeks on the healing path!

And now that I'm getting further down the path toward reclaiming my life, no - make that claiming my life for the very first time - I was grateful for the feedback. Apparently, now that I'm moving from the darkness into the light, I am "perky," "glowing," "cheerful" and "strong."
Imagine that!

It's been 2 years and 2 months since I began this work and I'm happy to say I am in the final stage of healing now. I never thought I'd be able to say that, let alone be understood, but thanks to Althea I now understand myself and am in the homestretch.

Hooray for the homestretch...hooray for Althea Hayton!
Hooray for strong Womb Twins who are getting to their truth...we are all so special indeed.

Today is a Great Day for a Womb Fest!

2010-05-22T10:35:00.003-04:00

We couldn't be blessed with a nicer day on which to come together...

I'm excited to see you all in a couple hours.

Tick Tock Tick Tock - Womb Twins Unite!!

See post below for location or call Monica 347 683 4063

NYC Womb Fest TOMORROW!

2010-05-21T13:42:00.002-04:00

Hear We....Hear We.....!!

Womb Twin's will meet tomorrow, Sat May 22, at 12:30pm in the Atrium directly across from Grand Central Station, on 42nd Street, at 120 Park Avenue (just right of Pershing Square).

Call Monica if you need help finding it: 347 683 4063.

Come listen...come share...come be together with others who "get it."
This informative session will be intimate and flexible based on the needs of the group.
The goal is to maximize our time together so that we have new understanding and tools to take forward on our respective journeys, new connections and ways of being will abound!

Heal We...Heal We....!!

Can't wait to see you all....

With twin love & light,
Monica

The Conference: I'll be there in spirit

2010-05-13T07:51:00.000-04:00

Like many others, I so long to attend this upcoming New York conference--but central Texas is a long way away, and I am in the midst of launching my latest fiction novel, A WAR OF HER OWN, set during WWII with a protagonist who is a wombtwin survivor herself but doesn't know it. Few people during that time had any knowledge of the syndrome, or its effect on their life. It's existence was just becoming known by the doctor who discovered it. The official release date of the book is set for September 2, 2010.

Twenty-year-old Bea Meade wishes for a good night's sleep. Instead,she spends her nights crying, feeling alone in a half-empty womb, a womb both a graveyard and a birthing chamber. Her most critical need, however, is for her husband to come home with his paycheck so she can pay the rent. Instead, he comes with a tale of unfaithfulness and of a woman pregnant with his child.

A percentage of the authors net proceeds will go toward Wombtwin education. Updates on that will be shared with members of the blogs. With support from other WTS, we can make a difference!

Watch for updates and ordering info here on this blog.

NYC Womb Twin Gathering on May 22

2010-05-07T15:38:00.004-04:00

Did you, or someone you know, lose a twin or multiple in the womb or at birth?
Are you a social worker or therapist who would benefit from finding out more about this soon-to-be classified condition?
Do you have vague feelings & behaviors related to incompleteness/self-sabotage for which there is no other explanation?

Then don't miss this unique opportunity to register for the upcoming Womb Twin Gathering in NYC on May 22 at 12pm. It will be an informal opportunity to find out more about the affects of reliving the dream of the womb, to interact with others on this healing journey and gain tools & resources for healing.

Agenda as follows:

12:00-12:45pm - All: Share our womb story
12:45-2:00pm - All: Updates on each of our healing journeys
2:00-2:15pm - (Break)
2:15-2:45pm - Monica + Barbara R: Experience with NET (Neuro Emotional Technique)
2:45-3:15pm - Barbara M: Open Space UK 2009 conference wrap-up
3:15-4:00pm - All: Discussion on clutter/hoarding, kicked off by Barbara M’s Open Space clutter journey
4:00-4:30pm - All: Book reviews/Resources/Open Space 2010/misc
4:30-4:45pm - (Break)
4:45-5:45pm - Free time for everyone to share and bring up issues of special interest
5:45-6:00pm - Closing ritual in remembrance of our womb mates

Location near Grand Central Station to be announced.

Come discover that you don't have to suffer alone! Learn to reclaim your life without survivor guilt!

To register please reply to this post or contact Monica at 347 683 4063.

Hoarding Survey

2010-05-06T17:28:00.000-04:00

I logged in to the world blog and took the survey on hoarding, clutter. It was an interesting survey and if you haven't taken it yet, I encourage you to do so. I was amazed at how much healthier I am now, after several years of working on my survival as a womb twin once I realized that was a fact of my life.

We moved a couple of years ago and for the first time in my life I was able to let go of so many things I had clung to for years. I was able to celebrate the fact that I didn't need to keep the clutter, that I could release it and let it go. I realized I could enjoy the knowledge that other people would enjoy those things I released.

Worldly possessions do indeed have a spiritual aspect to them because they connect me to my past. Now, I can pass those sacred objects on to others to enjoy, and I can enjoy a much cleaner, uncluttered house.

Hoarding, Clutter, Holding On to Things: Take the Survey

2010-05-03T16:28:00.024-04:00

Hi, U. S. Wombtwin Members!

We need to get down to a real understanding of how "hoarding/clutter/holding on to things" is related to being a womb twin survivor (if at all) An online survey has been created to help facilitate this study. (According to Althea, there was a rather pathetic Wuffoo survey a while ago but that was not very helpful. This one is a bit more wide- ranging and may point to something useful.)

Please go to either of these links and participate in the survey.

Hoarding Survey

Direct Link

Calling All Womb Twin Survivors!!

2010-04-22T17:04:00.002-04:00

How exciting - the NYC Womb Twin Gathering is only One Month Away!

Four attendees so far...and counting...

All are anxious to get together (we have so much to talk about!) so it may just start earlier than 2pm.

Agenda and location to be announced shortly.
Stay tuned!

Womb Twin Gathering in NYC - May 22, 2010

2010-04-13T15:21:00.002-04:00

If you think you are a Womb Twin Survivor - or know that you are - please join us for an informal gathering in New York City on Saturday, May 22, 2010 at 2pm.

Don't miss this unique opportunity to join fellow Womb Twin Survivors who will be discussing their latest findings on the healing journey, insights & developments on this condition, healing techniques and resources. Share a safe space with others who "get it" so that you don't have to be alone with these feelings (which can range from feeling like something is missing, to falling into a black hole and everything in between). Learn more about yourself and the common patterns affecting every 1 in 10 people who are estimated to be affected by having once shared a womb with a twin or multiple.

This eye-opening discussion will conclude with an experiential exercise.

Venue to be announced. Donations accepted on behalf of Wombtwin.com Ltd.

To Register, please call Monica at 347 683 4063 or reply to this posting.

Looking forward to seeing all you East Coast Womb Twin Survivors!

Syl's Story: Overwhelming Loneliness

2010-03-21T11:56:00.000-04:00

Despite the smile on my face, I came into this world feeling lonely, unworthy and unlovable. No one in my family understood why.

It was mid 1939 when my mother suspected she might be pregnant with her second child. Her first child, a daughter, was only eighteen months old and mother was not excited about the prospects of another baby. One day as she stood at the ironing board, a huge gush of blood ran down her legs and to the floor. Startled by all the blood, but relieved her menstrual period had come, she cleaned up the mess and continued her chores. She did not consult a doctor, figuring the lateness of her period had been the cause of the excess blood.

A few weeks later, she and Dad and my sister went to a local carnival. Just as they stepped inside the gate, my mother hemorrhaged again. They fled home and again didn't consult a doctor. Mother just figured she'd miscarried. A few weeks later, however, Mother realized that she hadn't lost the baby--that she was pregnant after all.

As the due date arrived and Mother went into labor, the doctor came to the house only to discover the baby was coming breech. "Get this woman to the hospital," he said. "This baby will never be born alive here at home."

My father was out of town, so my aunt took Mother to the hospital. Later, in full blown labor, my mother felt something between her legs and asked my aunt to check.

A tiny leg, already turning blue, stuck out of my mother's body. I was entering the world not only breech, but a footling-breech--the most dangerous and most painful birth a woman can experience--and all without anesthetics.

I've since wondered if my leg got caught, or if I'd planted it there.

Loneliness has nothing to do with being alone, and feelings have little to do with facts. I grew up left-handed, and feeling isolated and shut out. No one would ever love me because I was unworthy. I internalized everyone's actions as rejection of me. I spent a lifetime drowning in my own Catch-22.

Nights were worse. For there in the blackness, silent voices roared in my head as I lay beside my sister, crying my heart out, with no idea why I cried, puzzling her, puzzling my mother.

Expanding my Catch-22 at seventeen, I married a good man, thinking now I would be important to someone, now I would be cherished. But the morning after the wedding he told me I would always come second in his life. That God would be first. That didn't make sense to me. Over time, I realized what he meant was that his denomination would come first--but it didn't matter, the results were the same. I came second.

I spent the next seven years crying myself to sleep every night. Only after the birth of my first child did the crying stop. Then, seven years after that, I joined a T-Group and learned my sense of slight by others was a feeling, not a fact. Aha! A clue!

We divorced after 28 years of marriage, and later I remarried, but I still didn't understand why I had always felt so lonely, so unloved, so unworthy--like a vital part of me was missing, until I came across a discussion on the web about the Vanishing Twin Syndrome. My world suddenly made sense. Instantly I knew that was why. That I, too, had a vanishing twin, or perhaps a triplet. That my mother's hemorrhages were indeed miscarriages. I called my sister and described VTW to her and she said, "On, absolutely, that makes sense. That's why you always acted the way you did--crying every night."

At long last, I can acknowledge the void I felt, and name it, knowing the void had a name. Sally--the name I gave every doll I owned. A child, or children, lost before anyone even knew they were there. Finally I understood my grief--my sense of unworthiness because I survived and she/they didn't. Now I can claim my twin/triplet, and honor their presence in my life before birth.

How about you? Feel free to comment--sharing your story with others. It indeed helps us all.

Welcome Sylvia!

2010-03-01T07:17:00.002-05:00

It's so nice to have you here...welcome!
The song "It Takes Two (to make a thing go right)" comes to mind...
What's on your mind this week?

New Contributor Coming In

2010-02-28T15:48:00.000-05:00

Hi, folks, I am a new contributor to Wombtwin.us blog and look forward to touching base with those who drop by. I will be soon be sharing my story here and welcome comments or questions. Learning my past has certainly helped me understand me--and why I've struggled with symptoms so common to wombtwin survivors. I look forward to hearing your story as well.

Come on in an make this blog a regular place to stop and visit. We will be posting as often as we can, and will try to keep things fresh and interesting. With your participation in the comments section you will help make life better for others who may still be in discovery of their own journey into this world.

Womb Twin Poetry Contest - March 31 deadline

2010-02-25T10:50:00.002-05:00

!!!CALLING ALL POETS & CREATIVE WRITERS!!!

Althea Hayton is offering you the chance to win £50 and also to have your poem published as the preface in her forthcoming book: "Womb Twin Survivors : the Lost Twin in the Dream of the Womb."

http://www.altheahayton.com/wren/womb-twin-surviv.html

To enter: Write your poem as a SONNET, that is in 14 lines, according to the rules set out here:

http://burton.byu.edu/Sonnets/Sonnets-How-to-Write2.pdf

Email it to Althea with full contact details. Only one entry per person. Deadline midnight GMT March 31st 2010. The winner will be announced on May 1st 2010. Prize money awarded on publication, plus a complimentary copy of the book. The poet keeps the copyright on the poem and agrees to this single use of the poem as a preface to the book.

All submissions will be posted on the wombtwinsurvivors website in early May 2010.

http://www.altheahayton.com/wombtwin/poetry/poetry.html

Celebrity Womb Twins...and MVP

2010-02-10T09:25:00.004-05:00

In the Michael Jackson documentary about "This Is It" they make reference to Michael feeling like his sister Janet was his twin, they then played a very womblike video of the two called "Scream" which, according to Guinness Book of World Records, was the most expensive video ever made:

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/michael-and-janet-jackson-scream/E6B931C37DFB6857D365E6B931C37DFB6857D365

It seems to be haunting evidence of Michael's private womb twin reality projected publicly as scorn against the media...

Reading about the death of actress Brittany Murphy has womb twin written all over it.
Body size and self esteem issues, clingy neediness, loneliness, drug abuse, etc. as well as what I wonder is a womb twin phenomena/symptom: MVP - Mitral Valve Prolapse. In Brittany's final moment her heart stopped, I had to wonder if it was due to her MVP which can lead to heart failure (particularly with the drugs she was reported to be on).

I, a womb twin survivor, have MVP. And I don't mean Most Valuable Player since I survived! I mean Mitral Valve Prolapse, a heart condition... I like to think my left heart valve doesn't close completely so that it can stay open to my twin. In learning more about this condition I couldn't help but notice the similar traits it shares with those of being a womb twin survivor - depression, sleeplessness, fatigue, panic attacks, chest pain, headaches, vertigo.

How many womb twin survivors out there knowingly or unknowlingly suffer from MVP?

On: Not Being "Over It"...

2009-11-02T15:31:00.000-05:00

Gut-wrenching aloneness. A hole through one’s soul. Almost crippling emptiness. Something unexplainable missing. These are some descriptions of what it feels like to have lost a twin (or multiple) in the womb or at birth – no matter how early the loss or how “full” a survivor’s life seems to be. Most people think that if a surviving twin lost a twin early that 1) they won’t be affected (certainly not as affected as later-loss twinless); and that 2) they should be over it by now. The truth is that they will never be “over it” because it is who they are. They can heal and move on, but they cannot simply erase their wombstory - in the same sense that a divorced person cannot pretend they were never married because they are now single again – only on a much deeper, cellular level, because it is in their wiring. To discount their twin nature would be to discount themselves. To pretend it didn’t happen or that someone whose dna is your dna didn’t exist, is to not exist. This is why early womb loss is so complex and difficult to heal and why it is different from twin loss.

Open Space UK - It's Not Too Late!

2009-10-19T12:41:00.000-04:00

There's still time to Register for this rare chance to meet Althea Hayton and other wombtwin survivors for 3 days of healing at the UK Open Space Event:

DATE: Friday 30th October to Sunday November 1st 2009
VENUE: St Albans Girls School, Sandridgebury Lane, St Albans, Hertfordshire, AL3 6DB,
PRICE: Members £55, non-members £70
FRIDAY October 30th 7.30 - 9.30pm Public meeting
Open to all by free ticket only - please use booking form below to apply.
SATURDAY October 31st
9.30am–6pm OPEN SPACE EVENT ~
6-7 candelighting ceremony
7pm-10pm Three course buffet supper
SUNDAY November 1st 10- 2.0 pm
10-11am Annual General Meeting of Wombtwin.com Ltd
11-12.30 THE HEALING JOURNEY for wombtwin survivors
12.30 Sandwich lunch
2 pm Departures
DATE: Friday 30th October to Sunday November 1st 2009
VENUE: St Albans Girls School, Sandridgebury Lane, St Albans, Hertfordshire, AL3 6DB,
PRICE: Members £55, non-members £70
FRIDAY October 30th 7.30 - 9.30pm Public meeting
Open to all by free ticket only - please use booking form below to apply.
SATURDAY October 31st
9.30am–6pm OPEN SPACE EVENT ~
6-7 candelighting ceremony
7pm-10pm Three course buffet supper
SUNDAY November 1st 10- 2.0 pm
10-11am Annual General Meeting of Wombtwin.com Ltd
11-12.30 THE HEALING JOURNEY for wombtwin survivors
12.30 Sandwich lunch
2 pm Departures
DATE: Friday 30th October to Sunday November 1st 2009
VENUE: St Albans Girls School, Sandridgebury Lane, St Albans, Hertfordshire, AL3 6DB,
PRICE: Members £55, non-members £70
FRIDAY October 30th 7.30 - 9.30pm Public meeting
Open to all by free ticket only - please use booking form below to apply.
SATURDAY October 31st
9.30am–6pm OPEN SPACE EVENT ~
6-7 candelighting ceremony
7pm-10pm Three course buffet supper
SUNDAY November 1st 10- 2.0 pm
10-11am Annual General Meeting of Wombtwin.com Ltd
11-12.30 THE HEALING JOURNEY for wombtwin survivors
12.30 Sandwich lunch
2 pm Departures
DATE: Friday 30th October to Sunday November 1st 2009
VENUE: St Albans Girls School, Sandridgebury Lane, St Albans, Hertfordshire, AL3 6DB,
PRICE: Members £55, non-members £70
FRIDAY October 30th 7.30 - 9.30pm Public meeting
Open to all by free ticket only - please use booking form below to apply.
SATURDAY October 31st
9.30am–6pm OPEN SPACE EVENT ~
6-7 candelighting ceremony
7pm-10pm Three course buffet supper
SUNDAY November 1st 10- 2.0 pm
10-11am Annual General Meeting of Wombtwin.com Ltd
11-12.30 THE HEALING JOURNEY for wombtwin survivors
12.30 Sandwich lunch
2 pm Departures

Register at www.wombtwin.com

RIP MJ

2009-10-06T13:38:00.000-04:00

I believe Michael Jackson was a wombtwin survivor, as Althea so eloquently commented on the UK blog. It seems he lost a lighter-skinned girl causing him to recreate this dream of the womb by becoming feminine and skeletal in appearance, his skin lighter (like the girls in the family), crooning songs about his loneliness despite worldwide adoration, being misunderstood, aching for the unconditional love he never got as a star-child which had to be more severe than usual due to him knowing that kind of love in the womb and not finding it here on earth...no wonder he sought this love in the form of Elvis (also a wombtwin survivor having lost his twin at birth, affecting him greatly) and Lisa-Marie, the daughter of a wombtwin, alas the light-skin female. The unknown recognition wombtwin survivors feel must've been present in their bond.

I've watched for months as this country mourned Michael's passing and watched the media's portrayal of his family and thought "typical wombtwin survivor dynamics - everyone running around in mystery, trying to figure out what happened in life and death -- and coming up dry, completely missing the underlying problem!" So much effort and energy spent skirting around the truth, a singleton-skewed world trying to make sense of opposing truths which can only exist in duality. How sad this world doesn't know - doesn't seem to want to know - about the plight of the wombtwin survivor. My hope is that someday, this will all be "out" so that help can come sooner rather than later. With no place to go to figure this out (for the most part), how many more casualties will there be? Oh Michael, I and many other wombtwin survivors understand exactly how you felt and why you did what you did or didn't do. You weren't so alone, after all.

A new initiative for wombtwin survivors in the USA

2009-05-21T17:05:00.000-04:00

Following our second US workshop in NYC with Althea Hayton on May 16, 2009, we are launching this new project to be known as wombtwin.us. For background information, just click on these links:

Wombtwin.com headquarters website

Althea's research website

If you're interested in helping us develop this project, please email me.