Faye Wilkins of Devon, England, didn’t realize her reproductive organs were abnormal until she hit puberty. When the rest of her friends were menstruating, she was only experiencing pain. She had also formed a lump that her mother thought may have been an ovarian cyst. She decided to see a doctor.
“At the age of 14, I couldn’t believe it when doctors told me I was born with two vaginas, two cervixes and two wombs,” the 31-year-old health care assistant told the New York Post. “I was in complete shock as I’d never noticed the condition before as the differences were only internal.”
Her condition was called uterus didelphys, which caused her menstrual blood to build up to 4¾ inches because one of the vaginal openings was blocked. She had surgery to make her two vaginas into one, but the doctor told her that chances of having a baby would be slim.
“I was warned after my diagnosis that it would be difficult to conceive due to reproductive organs being half the size they should be, making implantation harder,” Wilkins recalled.
She experienced six miscarriages, but finally gave birth to a healthy baby girl, Molly, who is now 7 years old. Wilkins’ daughter had developed in her left womb.
“With Molly, I had a cervical stitch to stop her being born too prematurely as my womb is split in half, it’s half the size, meaning it’s much weaker,” Wilkins said. “Thankfully, she was a little fighter and she held on as long as she could before being delivered by C-section seven weeks and two days early.”
After breaking up with Molly’s father, Wilkins became pregnant with her current partner’s child. But this time, the baby was developing in her right womb. The delivery was a success, and her son, George, is now 2 years old.
“I was given steroids to speed up George’s growth so he was born seven weeks and two days early,” Wilkins explained. “He was stronger than Molly, meaning he was out of neonatal care sooner.”
Uterus didelphys is extremely rare, with about one in 3000 females developing the condition. But the women who have it can still lead fairly normal lives. In fact, one popular Youtuber, Cassandra Bankson, told People that she recently discovered she has the condition.
Wilkins added that although uterus didelphys can come with complications, “having UD doesn’t make you any less of a woman.”
