TWO WOMBS, TWO BABIES!
Jennifer Ashwood, 32, from Camborne, beat incredible odds to have her twins…
As I totted up the dates in my head, I gasped. ‘I’m late,’ I thought to myself. It was my time of the month, but my period still hadn’t arrived yet.
Rushing out to the shops, I bought a pregnancy test.
‘I’m probably not,’ I said to my partner, Andrew, trying not to get his hopes up as I shut myself away in the bathroom. ‘Fingers crossed though,’ he said through the door as I peed on the plastic stick.
We waited with baited breath for the result.
After a few minutes, two blue lines appeared.
‘I can’t be!’ I cried.
‘You are!’ Andrew grinned. ‘We’re having a baby.’ Delighted, we’d been hoping to add to our family.
I already had my daughter, Millie, nine, from a previous relationship, but we were desperate to give her a sibling and to have a baby of our own together.
When I was expecting Millie, I had a textbook pregnancy.
No morning sickness, cravings or spotting. I sailed through to nine months with no problems at all, but this time was the complete opposite.
Curled around the loo, I was so nauseous and it only seemed to get worse as the weeks passed by.
We had been planning to tell Millie after the 12 week scan, but when Andrew was away with work she was starting to get worried as I was so ill.
‘There’s a reason I’ve been feeling so sick,’ I explained, handing her a present to unwrap.
As she tore open the paper, a t-shirt with the words ‘big sister’ fell into her lap.
‘You’re going to have a little brother or sister,’ I told her, excitedly.
‘No way!’ Millie squealed, bursting into tears of joy.
‘It’s the baby making me feel poorly,’ I said. ‘But it will pass, I’ll be OK.’ At the 12 week scan, Andrew clutched hold of my hand as the sonographer squirted cold jelly on my tummy and moved the cursor around my little bump.
But as we gazed at the grainy black-and-white image on the monitor, Andrew’s expression soon turned from one of anxiousness to one of confusion.
‘Now I’m not medical expert,’ he said. ‘But there looks like there’s more than one baby in there.’ The sonographer smiled. ‘You’re quite right,’ she replied. ‘Congratulations, you’re expecting twins.’
My jaw dropped.
Once we got our heads around the news, we were delighted.
‘You’ll never guess what,’ I told Millie, later that day. ‘What?’ she asked. ‘Mummy’s going to have twins,’ I beamed.
‘You’re going to have two siblings to play with.’ ‘Ohhh,’ she groaned.
‘I only wanted one!’
‘Oh darling, I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that,’ I sighed, knowing she’d get used to it.
As it was a multiple pregnancy,
medics explained I’d need scans every fortnight to check the babies were growing and developing as they should.
At the 20 week scan, Andrew and I decided we wanted to find out the gender of the babies.
But as the sonographer scanned me, a look of concern appeared on her face.
‘Is everything OK?’ I asked, starting to worry.
‘Erm, you’re definitely having twins aren’t you?’ she asked. ‘Yes,’ I told her.
‘Ok, well, I’ve never seen this before,’ she said.
‘I’m just going to grab my colleague to take a closer look.’
‘Now we can’t give you a firm diagnosis just yet, but you appear to have two wombs and there’s a baby in each,’ the doctor told me after examining the screen. ‘It’s exceptionally rare.’ They told us we were having one of each – a little boy and a little girl – and then sent us home after booking a follow-up appointment for four days’ time.
The consultant sat Andrew and I down and explained I had a uterine abnormality – a complete bicornuate uterus which was heartshaped with a baby in each side.
‘It’s two separate uterine cavities joined by one cervix,’ the consultant told me.
‘Everything else is the same, with two fallopian tubes, one each side, each with an ovary. It’s caused by a mid-line abnormality from when you were in the womb.’
I’d become pregnant with twins when one egg was released into each uterus and both of them had been successfully fertilised at the same time.
We were told each baby had their own uterus, their own amniotic sacks, and their own placentas.
It was like having two single pregnancies at the same time. He estimated the odds of it happening were one-in-500 million.
After the appointment, we went home and started researching it all for ourselves.
We discovered there was a slightly higher risk of miscarriage and premature birth.
At 28 weeks I started experiencing a few twinges and realised I was having contractions.
I rushed to hospital and doctors managed to stop my labour from progressing by giving me medication.
After a few days I was allowed to come back home to Camborne, Cornwall.
But on 6th May – six weeks before my due date – I started to have contractions again. ‘I think they’re coming,’ I warned Andrew.
We rushed to hospital and I underwent a caesarean. Little Piran was born first at 5lb 10oz, with Poppy born minutes later weighing 5lb 3oz. Doctors even took a photo of my uterus’ during surgery at my request, so I could see what it looked like.
The picture clearly shows the two uterus’ with one measuring much smaller than the other. After five days, I was allowed home, while the twins stayed in hospital for two weeks, having treatment for jaundice and feeding support.
And once the babies were back at home, our lives became a whirlwind of nappy changes and night feeds.
We soon settled into life as a family of five and Millie loved helping out.
Now, the twins are one and changing all the time.
They are each developing their own little personalities and I love watching them grow.
Piran is far more independent and he’s very chilled out, while Poppy always wants to be cuddled and loves attention.
Millie is a very proud and protective big sister, but Andrew and I have decided we won’t have any more children - our family is perfect as it is.
It’s twice as hard having two, but there’s double the cuddles and love.
We knew there could be a risk