COUPLE FEEL
Spotting a gorgeous set of twins in adorable matching outfits. Shopping for clothes for her own baby boy. Even watching as he chatters to another tot.
All these things should fill a new mum’s heart with joy, but for Rhiannon Donnelly they make her stomach sink like a stone.
For, while she cherishes every moment with five-month-old Gruffydd, Rhiannon is always acutely aware there is a space next to him that should be filled by his twin sister Mabli.
“It’s something you never expect to go through,” says Rhiannon, whose little girl was stillborn.
She is one of those who have suffered the heartbreaking loss of a twin - a pain shared by Manchester United footballer Cristiano Ronaldo and his partner Georgina Rodríguez.
“Buying for one instead of two is hard,” says children services worker Rhiannon, who is 33 and lives in Cardiff with her husband Nathan, 32.
“And when I see girls’ clothes in the shops it is very difficult.
“It’s also upsetting when I see other twins in their matching outfits. The first
If I’m out and the grief hits, I’ll give my son a big cuddle and I feel grateful he is OK
time it happened was on social media because my algorithms were all twin stuff, so I had to come off it for a long time as that was all I would see.
“When I felt ready to go back on it, I put in that I didn’t want to see twins anymore. It was a stab in the heart.
“Seeing twins is not any easier, whatever age they are. I just think, ‘That should have been us’.
“If I’m out and the grief hits, I’ll give my son a big cuddle, which is comforting, and I feel grateful that he is here and he is OK.”
The couple had been unsuccessfully trying for a baby for five years and they turned to IVF, with the second round working.
Rhiannon says: “After trying for so long to get pregnant, we felt really blessed to be having two babies.”
But their joy turned to tragedy when, at Rhiannon’s 30-week scan on October 6 last year, they were told Mabli’s heart had stopped beating.
Rhiannon then had to carry her dead daughter for another five weeks, as she was told if they delivered both twins at that point there was a risk Gruffydd would also not survive.
“I was grieving, but Gruffydd kept Nathan and I going,” says Rhiannon. “Feeling him moving and kicking inside was reassuring.” Gruffydd and Mabli were delivered by caesarean section five weeks later and after five days in hospital, Rhiannon was able to return home with Gruffydd.
And that was when the loss of their daughter became very real.
“Nathan and I had bought everything for them, as we knew with twins they often come early,” she says.
“We didn’t sort their room for a long time. We couldn’t face going in there.
“My eldest brother sold the extra cot and pram so we didn’t have to face doing it. Luckily, we had a lot of support.” On
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RHIANNON DONNELLY ON COMFORT SHE TAKES FROM BABY BOY GRUFFYDD