Kelsey Hatcher was just 17 when she learned she had a double uterus.
Fifteen years later, the Alabama woman got a second shock: She’s pregnant with twins, one in each uterus.
Fox News Digital spoke to the 32-year-old mother and fitness coach — she already has three children — about her extremely rare pregnancy.
“I was having some minor complications that led us to set up an OB appointment, and upon examination and ultrasound, they discovered it,” she said.
Known as uterus didelphys, Hatcher’s condition affects only about 0.3% of the population, according to Cleveland Clinic.
“Essentially, the uteri are the size of one split in half.”
Hatcher had her first three children in “normal” pregnancies — Raelynn (6), River (4) and Rhemy (2).
For her next pregnancy, she was a little nervous going into the eight-week ultrasound.
“As the tech scanned and said everything looked great, I confirmed, ‘There is only one, right?’” Hatcher said.
“She smiled and said yes, so I took a breath and relaxed. But I then told her, ‘I’m not sure if it’s on my chart, but I do have a second uterus, just so you aren’t alarmed.'”
The tech scanned over to find the other uterus.
“She didn’t even have a chance to speak before I blurted out, ‘Oh my goodness, there is another one!’” she recalled.
Hatcher was “in utter shock,” she said.
“All I could do was laugh,” she said. “I immediately called my husband, Caleb, to tell him, as he was not at the appointment with me. He and I just laughed together.”
Hatcher’s doctors were also in shock, she said, repeating how “rare and special” her case was.
The odds of any given woman having this type of pregnancy is about one in 50 million, as an OB/GYN at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston told Scientific American.
Shweta Patel, M.D., assistant professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Department of OBGYN, who is also Hatcher’s obstetrician, described the pregnancy as “very surprising.”
“It’s rare enough to have a uterine didelphys, more commonly known as a double uterus, but even more rare to have a pregnancy in each uterus,” she told Fox News Digital.
“I had to see the images of the ultrasound myself to believe it.”
Genetically, the babies — both girls — fit the definition of fraternal twins.
“We just have the added separation of different wombs,” Hatcher said.
“Since the pregnancies are in separate uteri, we know that they occurred with two separate eggs and two separate sperm, meaning they will be fraternal twins,” Patel added.
“It is so rare to have a pregnancy in each uterus that I am not sure that we know to call it anything else but a twin pregnancy.”
The risks involved with Hatcher’s two pregnancies are the same as with a single pregnancy, she told Fox News Digital.
“There is always a risk of preterm labor, miscarriage or uterine rupture if the baby goes too long — but all of these things are a risk with any pregnancy,” she said.
The current plan is for Hatcher to have a natural, vaginal delivery.
“We believe that because my body has done this three times before, it should be able to deliver the twins in the same way,” she said.
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