A mother's unique pregnancy story went viral on Tiktok after sharing that she gave birth to two babies from two different uteruses within a year. The mother, Caroline Wortman, learned that she was almost ten weeks pregnant with her second child six months after she gave birth.
Caroline's birthing story is inspiring as doctors have told her since she was 18 years old that she might be infertile or have difficulty getting pregnant in the future because of a rare uterine condition. She said she also shares her story to raise awareness about fertility issues, Epoch Times reports.
Growing up with uterine didelphys
According to Caroline, she has always wanted to have children. Still, she would not expect much from it. Doctors told her that she might be infertile after being diagnosed with uterine didelphys, a condition in which a woman has two sets of reproductive tract organs instead of one.
WebMD says that uterine didelphys is a rare congenital abnormality, and it happens while the baby is still in the womb. A developing girl fetus grows a uterus from two different channels called the Mullerian ducts. The channels eventually join together to form the uterus. However, for women with uterine didelphys, the Mullerian ducts fail to join together properly. Instead, each tube develops into a uterus, causing her to develop two.
In some cases, women with uterine didelphys also have two cervixes and a thin wall of tissue down the vagina, hence, having two vaginas.
Many women with uterine didelphys are unaware that they have the condition as it is sometimes only found during a routine pelvic exam or ultrasound.
As for Wortman, she learned she had the condition when she was 18 years old. At the time, she said she just shrugged off the news, unaware of the implications of having such a condition, she said.
She asked the doctor what having two cervixes meant, and her doctor told her that she might be infertile, and if she ever did become pregnant, it would likely be complicated. When the doctor confirmed her condition two months later after an internal ultrasound, the doctor again told her that it would be difficult for her to get pregnant in the future.
Getting pregnant twice a year
Wortman said she was worried that they might not have a baby when she married, but her husband assured her that things would work out. Instead, they just tried to be happy and relaxed as newlyweds. In April 2020, they were ecstatic to learn that she was pregnant, and Josie was born a day after New Year of 2021: January 2, 2021. She was healthy, weighing six pounds.
Six months later, they learned that they were pregnant with baby number two, who was almost ten weeks. She said the doctors did see the other baby as it was "small enough to see the other uterus and confirm which side the baby was in."
Wortman had a normal second pregnancy, but she went into labor at 33 weeks. Brooks Daniel Hayes was born weighing just 5 pounds 5 ounces and was in NICU for nine days. Premature delivery is a common complication with uterine didelphys.
Wortman shared her story on Tiktok and had garnered more than 930,000 views and nearly 39,000 likes.
She tells women struggling with fertility issues that being infertile and thinking that you are infertile are two different things. She also advises women not to give up if they want to become mothers and not take doctors' words as the end-all-be-all, Daily Mail reports.
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