She was pregnant in two uteruses. Her twins made it home for Christmas.
When Kelsey Hatcher delivered her baby last week, she smiled and cried while doctors cheered and clapped. But after Alabama doctors handed Hatcher her newborn a few minutes later, they got back to work.
There was still another baby to deliver.
Hatcher was pregnant with two fetuses in separate uteruses, which occurs in one of every million pregnancies, her doctors said. After doctors planned for seven months for a pregnancy they had never witnessed, they delivered Hatcher’s healthy babies last week.
Roxi, who developed in Hatcher’s right uterus, was born Tuesday. The next morning, Rebel, from Hatcher’s left uterus, was born via Caesarean section.
Hatcher and her fraternal twins returned to their Dora, Ala., home on Friday and spent their first Christmas together.
“Never in our wildest dreams could we have planned a pregnancy and birth like this; but bringing our two healthy baby girls into this world safely was always the goal,” Hatcher, 32, said in a statement on the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) hospital website. “. . . It seems appropriate that they had two birthdays, though. They both had their own ‘houses,’ and now both have their own unique birth stories.”
Shweta Patel, Hatcher’s obstetrician at UAB, told The Washington Post that the babies’ deliveries filled the room with “excitement and happiness.”
“It was a sigh of relief that everyone was doing so well after the delivery,” Patel said.
Hatcher was born with uterus didelphys, a rare condition that forms two uterine cavities. The disorder increased Hatcher’s chances of miscarriages and premature births, but she and her husband, Caleb, had two daughters and a son who were born without complications.
In March, Hatcher unexpectedly became pregnant. She and Caleb hoped they could handle raising four kids, but they would soon learn there would be a fifth.
In May, an ultrasound nurse discovered fetuses in both of Hatcher’s uteruses. Hatcher said she laughed in disbelief.
She started feeling both fetuses kicking about 16 weeks into her pregnancy. Doctors told her that the babies could arrive hours, days or weeks apart.
While Hatcher didn’t know how the pregnancy would progress, she and Caleb decided to give the babies names that start with R – the same letter their other children’s names begin with.
Hatcher wanted to have both babies before Christmas so her family could spend the holiday together. While Hatcher’s original delivery date was Dec. 22, her doctors moved the date in hope of meeting her goal.
When the couple drove to UAB on Tuesday, Hatcher worried about potential problems, such as the babies needing a long time to be delivered, she said in an interview released by the hospital.
At UAB, doctors gave her
Pitocin, a labor-induction drug, to prompt contractions in both uteruses. Doctors monitored both fetuses through ultrasounds to judge which baby should be delivered first. While Patel said the hospital staffed the operating room similarly to a traditional twin pregnancy, more nurses than usual monitored each uterus.
Doctors noticed the fetus in the right uterus was further along. A few hours later, Roxi, who weighed 7 pounds and 7 ounces, was born at 7:45 p.m.
“We knew that our time wasn’t done,” Patel said, “and we still had more work to do.”
Minutes later, doctors were monitoring the other fetus while Hatcher breastfed Roxi. Hatcher told doctors that she would wait any amount of time to birth both babies naturally. In her hospital room, Hatcher lay on her side with a yoga ball – shaped like a peanut – between her legs and held them off the bed in hope of inducing labor.
But Patel said the fetus in the left uterus wasn’t dropping into Hatcher’s pelvis, so the doctor suggested a C-section.
In the morning, the Hatchers returned to the operating room. Doctors weren’t sure what to do with Roxi, so they brought her into the delivery room in her bassinet.
When Rebel was born at 6:10 a.m., weighing 7 pounds and 3 1/2 ounces, Patel said there was more cheering, clapping and crying. Patel said she carried Rebel above Roxi’s bassinet so the sisters could meet.
“That was our first moment of just us four together and really getting to breathe that in,” Hatcher said in an interview released by the hospital.
After Hatcher returned to her recovery room, she held the babies together for the first time, Patel said. When Hatcher lays Roxi and Rebel beside each other, she said, they inch closer and touch each other.
“There’s that connection there,” Hatcher said in the hospital’s interview. “How strong it will be as they grow up, we’ll see, but they definitely have a bond.”