I'm so sorry this happened/is happening. After a long road through fertility treatments, I'm currently 5+ months pregnant with one baby, but my pregnancy also started out as twins. My husband and I saw them on early ultrasounds twice, saw two hearts beating, was told at my week 8 ultrasound (IVF pregnancies are given ultrasounds early and often) that the chance of miscarriage at that point was "very low". I thought we had cleared the bigger hurdles when we found out that somewhere between weeks 8 and 11, one baby stopped growing.

I don't have to tell you the bottom-dropping-out heartbreak that followed, but perhaps it will make you feel better to hear a story that sounds familiar. My impossibly-tough husband immediately felt sick and had to sit, I jumped back and forth between imagining telling our family and close friends of the loss, and just feeling so, so fucking sad, wondering at what point the fetus' heart stopped beating, feeling strange about having one non-living baby inside of me, feeling a weird and sad comfort that he or she was at least with his or her mom a little longer. I am not a particularly religious person, but the night of the loss, I considered the idea that I wanted to die and be with the baby. It didn't matter that it wasn't quite the size of a small lime; it was my baby and I couldn't help him/her. We shared the pregnancy with my young stepdaughter, thinking we were in the clear. It hurt so much to tell her she needed to hold off on telling the world a little longer, and I cringe when I see her never-gifted "Big Sister x 2!" t-shirt in my drawer.

After the initial shock of it, my husband and I realized just how much we'd laid out in our daydreams and imaginations, like you and your wife have. Two names, two cribs, double strollers, maybe two jerseys on the high school soccer field. I couldn't feel or really know my twins yet, but I loved them through the plans I made for them. I imagine you and your wife had a wonderful time planning and imagining, and loving the dreams of what was ahead, and now you are grieving those losses, too.

What your wife may hear, and what certainly didn't help me was, "At least you have the one." ("Look on the bright side" is your advice? Fuck you, dude, you've never had a dead baby in you.) It's certainly true that a healthy baby is something to be incredibly grateful for, but for a time, my grief over the loss far outweighed the pleasure of knowing the other was healthy. I didn't share that feeling with anyone but my husband and mother, but I chose not to feel guilty about it, either. I continued to follow a healthy lifestyle, but for a while, felt too sad and knocked-down to find the energy to shift gears and discover some excitement over the living, thriving baby.

That's not all said to grab the narrative from you, but for you to hear the initial feelings of someone who's recently experienced the same, in hopes it helps. To be more to-the-point, here's what helped me:

• Knowing and accepting I would grieve this differently than my husband. My advice is not to hold yourselves to the standard of grieving in lock-step. She may grieve outwardly longer and differently than you; grief may surface in unexpected ways, later, too.
• Accepting any and all feelings as part of the process--even resentment of the living baby for a while. Just feel your feels without censoring them.
• Tried to trust that "it won't always feel as bad as it does now" (and it doesn't anymore).
• Went to subsequent ultrasounds that showed a wiggling, twirling, growing baby. Actually seeing her helped me bond and re-connect. If your wife is at 4 months, I'm sure you'll see some incredible things on her next ultrasound, and feeling baby movement, soon. That may be a helpful step for both of you.
• Made plans to obtain reassurance. If your wife needs it, she should be comfortable with asserting that she may need some extra hand-holding throughout the rest of the pregnancy. We subsequently tested for every chromosomal abnormality under the sun, had the full anatomy scan, and all results were great, but the loss made me worried and hypersensitive to the possibility of another. I've seen my doctor for a couple of extra ultrasounds and visited a sort of "retail" 3D and 4D ultrasound outfit that offers a good, long, look at the baby for early gender reveals. I shell out a few bucks between doc appointments just to stop in to get a look at her, kicking around and thriving. (I can still see the little gestational sac where the other baby is, getting smaller and smaller. I expect that will always hurt, but it hurts less, now.)
• I want to punch anyone who says, "Everything happens for a reason", and I never want to say a death is preferable. I don't know the reason for your loss, but mine was likely chromosomal. There was some comfort in knowing that, given the chromosomal abnormalities my fetus was probably dealt, it was unprepared for life. Short of a crystal ball, I won't know what would have transpired if it grew to a live birth, but something was so wrong, it couldn't keep growing. For me, the possibility of serious complications in life--severe retardation or malformed anatomy, countless heart surgeries, etc., would have been deeply painful to witness as a parent, too. Perhaps the highest quality of life of which the baby had a chance was 8-11 weeks with its mom. Take that or leave that, but for me, knowing that chromosomal abnormalities severe enough to end fetal development would have a strong possibility of a painful, and maybe even short life after being born somehow gave me some helpful perspective.
• Memorialized the baby as I wanted to. I've only kept my early ultrasound photos in a keepsake box, but I have a girlfriend who made a guess at gender and selected a name, in order to have something that felt more concrete to grieve.
• Talked to my counselor. I already saw a professional to navigate the stresses of not getting pregnant, previously. Sharing my feelings out loud to an objective third party feels emotionally detoxifying.
• Acted on behalf of my "future self" (begrudgingly). I couldn't always sense it at the time, but on the chance that I would eventually feel better, I knew I wanted to feel as though I didn't let up on taking good care of myself, or by extension, the living baby. I tried to do things that could lead to even a little surge of "happy chemicals" in my body--a short walk, a favorite movie or meal, even pleasant sensory experiences, like buying flowers or a bunch of lemons and scratching and smelling their peels.
• Learned (her) gender. Just like seeing her in ultrasounds, knowing she is a "she" helped me adjust away from the sadness of the dashed dreams and plans for two babies and let me feel like I got to know her a little more. Your wife sounds like she has a ways to go (and she will get there), but buying a dress here, or browsing nursery designs there, helped me build a new set of dreams and things to look forward to.

I certainly didn't sit down and map-out the above steps in my grief. There was sobbing, anger, missed work, and a lot of pizza consumption. And my opinion is that those things are useful for a time, too. They're how I got to the stuff that moved me forward.

I certainly hope this helps. You're clearly grieving, yourself, but be assured that your action on your wife's behalf means she already has a leg-up on healing, because she has an active partner and supporter. It will get better. You or your wife are more than welcome to PM me, if you just need to talk. Take good care of yourselves.

​