TWO WOMBS… AND A BABY EACH!
JENNIFER ASHWOOD HAD A BUN IN THE OVEN ... BUT SHE WAS IN FOR A DOUBLE SURPRISE
W
hen Jennifer Ashwood found out she was expecting twins, the shock took a while to sink in.
But the expectant mum and her partner, Andrew House, were in for an even bigger surprise when they discovered Jennifer had two wombs and she had fallen pregnant with a baby in each of them.
Doctors told the family the chances of having twins in this way – in a rare “heart-shaped” uterus – was one in 500 million.
“The babies had their own uterus, their own amniotic sacs, and their own placentas,” Jennifer tells New Idea. “The medics said it was realistically like having two single pregnancies at the same time.”
Remarkably, Jennifer became pregnant with twins when one egg was released into each uterus – and they were both successfully fertilised at the same time. Her adorable babies, Poppy and Piran House, were born at 34 weeks in May and the family, including 8-year-old big sister Millie, are now all home in Cornwall, UK, and getting to grips with their two new members.
“To have the two uteruses is rare in itself, but to have an egg in both, then those to be fertilised, and then for both eggs to be in the right part, it’s a bit of a miracle,” Jennifer, a care coordinator, says.
“It is ridiculously rare. The odds were stacked against us but it all worked out. You think that you know your body well, but it turns out you might not.”
Jennifer, 31, explains what having a heart-shaped – or to use the technical term “bicornuate” uterus means.
“It’s two separate uterine cavities joined by one cervix,” she says. “Everything else is the same, with two fallopian tubes, one each side, each with an ovary.”
The proud mum says the abnormality was something that occurred while she was in the womb herself.
“It’s crazy when you think about it. It’s possible that the fertilisation could have occurred one or even two days apart, but it was from the same time.
“We found out at the 20-week scan and ever since people have been saying how rare it was.”
Jennifer and Andrew, a firefighter, found out they were expecting twins in December 2017, at their dating scan, and Andrew proposed on New Year’s Eve. It was two months before the pair discovered a medical marvel had taken place.
Even so, they remained cautious. A bicornuate womb carries a slightly higher risk of miscarriage and preterm birth.
Jennifer went into early labour at 28 weeks, but her contractions were stopped with medicine, and she had a C-section on May 6.
Little Piran was born first weighing 2.3kg, with Poppy born minutes later weighing 1.4kg.
The babies stayed in hospital for two weeks, having jaundice treatment and feeding support, but thankfully they’ve both since thrived.
During surgery, doctors even took a photo of Jennifer’s rare uterus – at the mum’s request!
“Because it’s so rare to carry a baby in each one, they didn’t really quite know what was going to happen until they opened me up and took a look,” Jennifer explains.
“They thought they were going to have to do an incision in each one to get them out, but they made one and managed to get the little boy out. They were just about to start on the other one, but she managed to kick her little foot through.”
Now, with her two bundles of fun back at home, Jennifer says life is “very, very busy”.
“We haven’t had much sleep but I don’t think we’d be having
“IT’S DOUBLE THE CUDDLES AND DOUBLE THE LOVE,” SAYS PROUD MUM JENNIFER
much even if we just had one,” she adds. “It’s double the cuddles and double the love.”
And the proud mum says Millie is “getting used to things slowly”.
“Luckily by some miracle they don’t seem to wake her up.
“When we told her it was twins she said she only wanted one but she’s coming round to the idea now.’
THE MUM SAYS LIFE WITH TWO BUNDLES OF FUN IS “VERY, VERY BUSY”