Jean Kollantai was thrilled to find out she was expecting twins. Throughout her pregnancy, she dreamed of pushing a double stroller and snuggling two babies in her arms. Then the unthinkable happened. Three days before their due date, one of her twins died suddenly in utero.

The loss of a child is every parent's worst nightmare – and grieving a child is always a complicated and painful process. However, when the child was a twin, triplet or higher multiple, the grief process becomes even more complicated.

"It is a horrendous loss," says Kollantai, who is the founder and director of the Center for Loss in Multiple Birth, headquartered in Anchorage, Alaska. "Parents expecting twins get so attached to both babies and to the idea of having twins. When one dies, reality becomes much different than what [they] expected."

In our society, multiples are given special status. "Parents feel special when they are expecting multiples," says Barbara Douglass, chaplain of Women's Services at Northside Hospital in Atlanta, Ga. "To lose one is very devastating." Whether the baby died in utero, was stillborn or died after birth, parents feel deprived – not only of the child they lost, but also of the opportunity to raise twins, triplets or more.

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