This mum’s twin pregnancy may go down in history as one of the rarest pregnancies of all time.
Two babies. Two uteruses. Two women?
Not quite. This mum is expecting two babies, possibly conceived at different times, living next door to one another.
Baby #1 is residing in Uterus #1 while Baby #2 is living his best life over at Uterus #2.
A double uterus pregnancy
Both uteruses belong to the same mum – Kelsey Hatcher. Kelsey was born with two uteruses and two cervices, which is an incredibly rare condition known as uterine didelphys, or a double uterus.
But even rarer is the fact that she is pregnant with one baby in each uterus.
Kelsey who lives in Alabama and her husband already have three children and were overjoyed to discover they were expecting another baby. She told WVTM that she then found out that she was expecting twins during an ultrasound.
On further examination, it was confirmed that baby #1 is growing in one uterus while baby #2 is in the other.
“1 in a million” twin pregnancy
Kelsey’s obstetrician Dr. Shweta Patel explained that because a body with a double uterus is “very very rare”, Kelsey’s twin pregnancy is considered high-risk.
University of Alabama at Birmingham physician Dr. Richard Davis, who specialises in high-risk pregnancies, echoed this notion, admitting it’s like nothing he’s seen.
A double cervix or double uteruses way under 1%, maybe three per 1,000 women might have that. And then the probability of you having a twin in each horn is really crazy,” he explained.
The odds of being pregnant at the same time in each uterus are about “1 in a million,” according to Dr. Richard Davis.
What will happen during the birth?
Kelsey’s twins – both girls – are growing normally in their different homes. But will they be delivered together? There’s a chance that Kelsey will go into labour at two different times, meaning that one baby may be born several hours, or even days, before the other.
So when she goes into labour, if she does, then we will have to monitor each uterus and see which one’s contracting, and if they’re doing sort of almost the same or they’re different,” Davis said.
Of course, a c-section could also be on the cards which means the twins would share the same birthdate.
Are they twins or sisters?
This is such a rare thing that there isn’t a proper term for it. Doctors are calling the girls twins, even though they technically aren’t.
I think medically, this is such a rare thing that we don’t have a better way of describing it besides still calling them twins.”
Kelsey is in the final trimester now so fingers crossed that the birth (or births) go smoothly. We look forward to an update on this one!
Even more rare pregnancies
Most of us assume that you cannot get pregnant while pregnant but many women have proven that you actually can.
This incredibly rare phenomenon is known as superfetation and occurs when a pregnant woman conceives again just days (or weeks) after their first conception.
Rosalie and Noah are one of the only documented superfetation twins, both born at 33 weeks but remarkably different in size.
Another incredibly rare pregnancy phenomenon is termed Unicorn Pregnancy which is what happened to UK mum Tamara McPhedran. She was 17 years old when she went into labour at 31 weeks gestation only to be told they couldn’t find the baby in her uterus.
When they decided they were going to deliver me, they opened up…and it’s an empty uterus with a bag of amniotic fluid inside. All this fluid I should have had with this baby was in this uterus but there was no baby,” Tamara explained.
I was very much still pregnant, just not in the place it should have been.”
Doctors ended up cutting Tamara open from hip to hip to figure out what was happening.
They found that I had this extra little cavity on it’s own. It didn’t have a cervix but it did have an ovary and a fallopian tube and it was not communicating to my actual uterus. That had my placenta and my baby in.”
Tamara’s baby – a little boy – was healthy and delivered safely that same day. Tamara was also diagnosed with a unicornate uterus, a super rare condition that causes a person to have only half a uterus.
Do you have a rare pregnancy story to share?? We’d love to hear it!
