PA Real LifeA woman who was told she might not be able to have children because she was born with two vaginas has given birth to miracle twins.
Lauren Cotter, 34, was diagnosed with uterus didelphys when she was just 16 after suffering from agonising menstrual cramps as a teenager.
Doctors warned Lauren the condition – which sees women born with two uteruses, two cervixes and, in her case, two vaginas – may impact her ability to carry and deliver a child, due to the reduced size of her wombs and cervixes.
However, despite the odds stacked against her, the 34-year-old fell pregnant with her first child – five-year-old Amelie – at the age of 28, and two years later fell pregnant with Harvey, three.
Lauren then fell pregnant again, this time with ‘miracle’ twins Maya and Evie, who were conceived while she was fitted with the contraceptive implant. All three of her girls were carried in her right womb while Harvey was in her left.
The mum-of-four insists her condition has never affected her sex life with her husband, 33-year-old policeman Ben, and says she was ‘open and honest’ with him about the possibility of her not being able to have children from the beginning.
Luckily, she explained, Ben ‘wasn’t bothered,’ and after talking it through they both agreed there was more than one way to have a baby if they wanted it badly enough.
PA Real LifeThe couple found it ‘easy’ to fall pregnant though, and Lauren took a positive pregnancy test in October 2013 a year into their marriage, after just one month of trying.
The mother explained:
We decided to give it a go, and just see what happened. We knew it might be a bumpy road and tried not to get our hopes up too much. Just a month after we started trying, I bought a stack of pregnancy tests and started taking them weekly.
Then one morning, I had a test to hand, and there on the stick was a very, very, faint blue line. I couldn’t be sure, so I took a test each morning that week, and each day the line got darker and darker until I was sure – we were pregnant.
Although she fell pregnant quickly, Lauren had been warned by doctors that being able to safely carry a baby to full term might not be possible, given that her wombs were half the average size. However, the pregnancy went smoothly and baby Amelie was delivered by C-section in 2014.
Lauren and Ben then decided to start trying for baby number two 18 months later, and she once again fell pregnant within a couple of months. Following another problem-free pregnancy, which saw the fetus grow in the left womb this time, the couple welcomed Harvey to their family.
PA Real LifeIt was only when she fell pregnant for a third time – this time while fitted with the contraceptive implant, which is more than 99 per cent effective – that doctors decided they needed to keep a close eye on Lauren for the sake of her health and the twins she was carrying.
Concerned about how long the mum would be able to carry twins due to her condition, doctors put her on strict bed rest from 19 weeks onward.
She explained:
My doctor was very honest and said he couldn’t know how the pregnancy was going to play out.
Little Maya and Evie were delivered via caesarean section in June last year, but Evie was rushed to intensive care just hours after their arrival after she began struggling with her breathing.
The newborn underwent keyhole surgery at just five days old because she was born with her intestines in the chest cavity, with her parents warned she had just a 50 per cent chance of survival. However, she miraculously recovered and was ready to come home after just three weeks.
PexelsNow 15 months old, the twins are happy and healthy – although Lauren revealed she requested that her fallopian tubes be removed during her final C-section to prevent her from falling pregnant for a fourth time. ‘Ben and I are one super fertile couple, and now we’re happy with things just as they are,’ she added.
Uterus didelphys affects around one in 3,000 women and occurs when the uterus fails to fuse properly when the fetus is developing in the womb. A few months after her diagnosis, Lauren had laser surgery to remove the dividing wall between her two vaginas to enable her to enjoy a normal sex life.
One year later, she met Ben at the age of 17 and they haven’t looked back since, with Lauren saying intimacy has never been a problem for the pair.
Congratulations to the happy couple!
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A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).