Hello!

[GillyF]

Hello Everyone,

The news that a Multiples board has been launched on OFB has taken me a little by surprise and having offered to moderate it I am so sorry to have to say I'm off on holiday for the next two weeks (to sunny N. Ireland as it happens where OFB began!) But sadly I suspect that on my return I will find it has been quite active as the number of people posting on OFB who have lost one or both twins is painfully high.

Losing any baby is tragic and life shattering, but loss after a multiple pregnancy is complicated. With the lone twin there is always the feeling that there should have been two, that the survivor is partnerless, and the loss of both babies is almost too awful to comprehend. How can it be that babies and their parents should suffer so? And then of course there are triplet pregnancies, fraught with risk.

I am so sorry that this is such a brief post, but if I may here is my half-penny's worth for how it should be structured:

 - that it runs as the others with anybody being able to start a new thread, but that we permanently run 'Lone Twins' and 'Loss of Both Babies' threads, so a visitor can tap into a thread which is dedicated to their experience. I am most conscious of the need for a safe place for parents who have lost all their babies to be able to go and talk to others who have been through the same without seeing posts about lone twins.  There may be a need for a triplets thread, but I do not recall anybody posting about loss after a triplet pregnancy.

If you think a long thread would be off-putting or difficult to manage, all I can say is that I used to visit a site for IVF patients and we had a twins pregnancy thread like this under the Pregnant Board and it worked fine.

I look forward to catching up on the response and reading through other ideas when I get back.

If anybody is interested in my story it can be found here: You are not allowed to view links.
Register or Login in summary form and (at great length!) in pdf form. I agreed to give my story because it enabled me to say in return to the people who can make a difference that I think the care of women with multiple pregnancies really needs to improve.   

Very best wishes to all,
Gilly     

[marie Ethan's mum]

Thank you gilly for taking on the task,  I have felt the benefit already , hope you have a great holiday  and look forward to sharing more on your return .

[Paula_xox_]

Hi Gilly

I'm sure you'll give lots of support to all of our twin angels mummies.

N' Ireland aint that sunny at the mo but we've not had anymore of the heavy rain

Have a great time

Paula xox

[Jen]

I'm also a multiples mum with empty arms, though too emotional at present with Hannah's birthday looming so close to share my story.

J looking forward to seeing you when you are over.

Don't listen to Paula about not having heavy rain - its only a week since the Westlink Underpass was under 25 feet of water!!

Jen

[kimbobt84-BensMummy]

Hi-i look forward to being able to use this board x