8 October 2025

Choosing outfits for her twins and planning their nursery, Rosa couldn’t wait for her babies to arrive. Her eldest daughter, Mila, had twin baby dolls and was counting down the days to becoming a big sister.

Despite a smooth pregnancy, tragically, twin Maeve died at just 24 weeks.

At the time, Rosa found great comfort in the online communities created by Twins Trust’s Bereavement Service. In the bereavement service Facebook group, Rosa found other families who had experienced loss.

Rosa said: “I fell pregnant in October 2020. I went for a private scan and my husband, Dan, and our eldest, Mila, were in the car park as it was during the pandemic. When they did the scan, I looked at the screen and I was sure I saw another baby. I didn’t say anything and the sonographer asked if the baby was naturally conceived. She said – there’s two here! It’s twins. I can just remember thinking I couldn’t believe it. I always had this thing thinking one day I would have twins. I felt really excited. So I phoned my husband and showed him the screen and said it was twins. I couldn’t believe it had happened.”

The couple revealed their happy news to family on New Year’s Eve, via Facetime, due to the Covid restrictions still in place. Rosa’s pregnancy continued with no complications and the couple started planning for the babies’ arrival. She added: “We were told they were dichorionic diamniotic (DCDA) twins, it was the lowest-risk twin pregnancy. We found out it was a girl and a boy and we breezed through up to 24 weeks. I was feeling the kicks at about 20 and 21 weeks. We had a routine scan at 24 weeks, and Dan was allowed to come in, it was that moment where it all crashed.

“I will always remember the sonographer doing the scan to find the heartbeats. I can remember when she went over Maeve’s body. I could see the sonographer’s face and I could see Maeve was still. The sonographer said she needed to get somebody. I looked at Dan, I was wondering what was going on. The next consultant did a check and said sorry there wasn’t a heartbeat. From that point, I was changed forever. You always think before that part and after that part. My life completely turned upside down. It was a complete blur.”

Thanks to counselling, Rosa is able to look back and talk about Maeve’s death and what helped her when she struggled. She added: “After the 24-week scan, we met with a twin midwife, I can remember her saying some words that stuck with me. She said ‘you will always be a twin mum’. It was such a nice thing for her to say. After Maeve died, I felt like I was out of the twin club. We’d bought two cots, changed our car for the extra car seats and got matching pink and blue clothes. Our life how we pictured it with the nursery wasn’t going to be that way – it’s hard getting your head around it. I carried a lot of guilt, not about how she died, as it was unknown. I didn’t feel like it was my body that failed her.”

Rosa carried the twins to full term but said she found days tough with the mix of emotions of preparing for a new baby but also the grief of losing Maeve. Some days she said she felt she questioned everything and battled with her emotions.

She said: “One of the hardest parts was telling Mila. Dan told her and was very matter of fact. She used to carry round two baby dolls and we told her she’d have real life twins. She had a lot to understand at a young age. We talked very openly about emotions with Mila. After Maeve died, I felt like I was walking on air, like an out of body experience. But I found comfort carrying Maeve, she was in my belly and with Jax and I felt like could protect her.”

Rosa returned to work a few weeks after Maeve’s death, which she said did help to focus her mind. Rosa discovered Twins Trust’s Bereavement Service thanks to the twin midwife at Southend Hospital.

Rosa said: “I found the Facebook group really helpful. I found myself searching for stories about others in the same situation. I wanted to remain silent so I didn’t feel the need to post, I was more of a silent reader. You could find people that had gone through the same experience and were sharing their emotions of how they were feeling. That helped hugely and knowing what I was feeling was normal.

“You know that baby loss happens but there’s a strong community of people in the baby loss community. It’s a group of people with the same lived experience who are helping each other. You know you’re not alone and others are going through it.

Twins Jax and Maeve were born on 28 July 2021.

“It was so surreal, I’ve got life and I’ve got death on the same day. In one way it was really special to have them next to each other but then it was full of such sadness. How can I be sad when I have Jax? But how can I be happy when I have Maeve who has died? It was a complete rollercoaster of emotions," Rosa said.

Baby Loss Awareness Week is important to Rosa as a week to honour Maeve.

She added: “BLAW is an opportunity to amplify that baby loss happens and it happens to many people. In our local area there’s a display of knitted hearts and you add your baby’s name. It gets people talking. The worst thing for me is people not acknowledging what’s happened and not saying the baby’s name.

“The week is massively important to get the message out about the support that’s out there.”