Vanishing Dwin.
My initial plan was to write these articles in chronological order because I actually remember which edible episode came before which. But as we all know — man proposes, an intoxicant disposes. This article is a result of my session two days ago. Hope you can at least tolerate it.
“When my mother was pregnant with me, they did an ultrasound and found she was having twins. When they did another ultrasound a few weeks later, they discovered that I had resorbed the other fetus. Do I regret this? No. I believe his tissue has made me stronger. I now have the strength of a grown man and a little baby.” — Dwight, The Office. S3E4
So yeah, I was watching The Office when it start to hit.
After spending SO much time laughing at this thing Dwight said, I asked myself, “is it actually possible to resorb a twin?”. I thought I was being silly but…
The short answer is yes. It is possible to resorb a twin before birth and it’s know as Vanishing Twin.
Long Answer
Well, I was quite wammed, and this internet rabbit hole was calling. After spending what felt like hours trying to decide whether I should finish the episode or do this research, I summoned Google and as expected, led me to Wikipedia first.
Vanishing twins occur in up to one out of every eight multifetus pregnancies and may not even be known in most cases. “High resorption rates, which cannot be explained on the basis of the expected abortion rate…suggest intense fetal competition for space, nutrition, or other factors during early gestation, with frequent loss or resorption of the other twin(s). – Wikipedia
“…and may not even be known in most cases”
Wait what? Does that mean that any one of us, like Dwight, could have resorbed our twin sibling the womb?
Well, yes. That’s exactly what it means. 🤯
In pregnancies achieved by IVF, “it frequently happens that more than one amniotic sac can be seen in early pregnancy, whereas a few weeks later there is only one to be seen and the other has ‘vanished’.” – more Wikipedia
Apparently some women actually do strongly feel like they’ve lost a baby in the early stages of their pregnancy with twins or triplets. This made me think too long about all the (physical & psychological) trauma women go through during (and after) pregnancy. It made me really yearn for a time we can tap a baby incubation configuration into a microwave-like device or whatever and leave women out of that mess (like in Gattaca).
Then after days of floating (yes, floating) across the internet. I stumbled on this particularly peculiar case of The Vanishing Twin.
Basically, she is her own twin.
🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯
“I have two different immune systems, and I have two different bloodstreams. My body treats my sister’s DNA and cells as foreign matter and wants to get rid of them, but it can’t,” – Taylor (the woman I speak of)
It’s apparently a thing. A very very very rare thing, but a thing nonetheless.
I ended up spending another 12 weeks just reading random articles about how people who had a Vanishing Twin might have special intuition or might feel some inexplicable pressure to be perfect as some sort of subconscious resolve to prove to their parents that it’s fine if they’re the twin that survived. Though I don’t know how much of that is true or can actually be verified.
Lastly, I stumbled on this hilarious question on Quora (just now while writing this):
“if you absorb a twin in the womb will you get a mole?”
Back to “Grief Counselling”
After that year long intense research sprint, I saw that I still had time in the day to finish my episode of The Office.
It’s really hard to explain concisely what was going in that episode to people who haven’t seen it but I’m going to try:
(The boss,) Michael’s former boss just died — he got decapitated as a result of a car accident. Most of the people that worked at the office didn’t know him personally and quickly moved on. Because of this Michael made it his mission to make everyone be in a “somebody-just-died” depressed, somber mood.
Why would he do that?
Well, he’s Michael. Watch the damn show, it’s on Netflix. Don’t make the same mistake I did and wait too long before watching it.
ANYWAY, the speech at the beginning of this post was as a result of Michael making everybody talk about the death of a close one.
This is how he got it started:
I am going to throw you this ball. When you catch the ball, I want you to say the name of a person very important to you, somebody really special, who died, and then I want you to say how they died. And you may cry if you like. That is encouraged. Let me just start. Let me show you how this works. I catch the ball. I lost Ed Truck and it feels like somebody took my heart and dropped it into a bucket of boiling tears. And, at the same time, somebody else is hitting my soul in the crotch with a frozen sledgehammer. And then a third guy walks in and starts punching me in the grief bone. And I am crying, and nobody can hear me because I am terribly, terribly, terribly alone.
This is my second favourite speech (after Dwight’s obviously):
A few years ago, my family was on a safari in Africa, and my cousin, Mufasa, was… He was trampled to death by a pack of wildebeests, and we all took it really hard. All of us kind of in the audience of what happened. — Ryan Howard
Later on, Michael found out that a bird flew into a window earlier that day and made sure they had a funeral for the bird.
This was Pam’s speech at the funeral:
What do we know about this bird? You might think, “Not much. It’s just a bird.” But we do know some things. We know it was a local bird. Maybe it’s that same bird that surprised Oscar that one morning with a special present from above.
…
And we know how he died. Flying into the glass doors. But you know what? I don’t think he was being stupid. I think he just really, really wanted to come inside our building to spread his cheer and lift our spirits with a song.
Dwight: He’s not a song bird.
Michael: Shhh.
An impression, then. Lastly we can’t help but notice that he was by himself when he died, but of course, we all know that doesn’t mean he was alone. Because I’m sure that there were lots of other birds out there who cared for him very much. He will not be forgotten.
Why am I putting the entire script of this episode here? Well, I have reasons for you:
Reason 1
I wrote it down in my high notes. Remind myself to paste these specific quotes when I decided to write this post.
Reason 2
I remember when Ire Aderinokun told me that Tiff (who I know is hilarious from listening to her on ONE episode of Accidental Tech Podcast) recently started a podcast called Somehow I Manage. The podcast is about The Office. Every episode, they have a very in-depth discussion about one episode of The Office. I thought it was crazy. I didn’t understand it. A whole podcast to talk about a show that I thought was probably overrated and wasn’t even new. Well, all it took for me to understand was 3 seasons of non-stop binging and a few gummies from Airfield Supply Co.
Look at me now! Writing a really long incomprehensible rant that is pretty much entirely based on one episode of this show.
Well, guys. I’m done for now. Off to listen to Episode 1 of SIM.
Post Scriptum: It’s a teeny spoiler but if you don’t want to see it, don’t google the phrase “Somehow I Manage”. Just click on the link I gave you, which will take you straight to the podcast or go ahead and add it to your podcast app. I made the mistake of Googling it and I’m still in Season 3.
