Woman with Double Uterus Gives Birth at 22 Weeks: Baby ‘Is a True Miracle’
Within the first couple weeks of finding out she was pregnant, Megan Phipps noticed something was off.
Phipps, 24, was born with uterine didelphys, or double uterus, a rare condition where a woman has two cervixes and two uteruses, according to the Mayo Clinic. Phipps has two older children whom she said she carried in her right uterus.
“I’ve always carried in my right uterus. They always thought my left side wasn’t active,” Phipps told “Good Morning America.”
Phipps went to her regular OBGYN, who referred her to a specialist. In this rare case, she was told she was actually pregnant on both her right and left sides.
In June, Phipps said she was in “excruciating pain” and was admitted to Bryan Health hospital in Lincoln, Nebraska, after she noticed spotting.
Her cervix was slowly shortening, creating a risk of preterm labor, according to her doctors. Phipps said a nurse later realized she was actually in the process of giving birth. At 22 weeks, merely in her second trimester, she was rushed to the delivery area where a neonatologist explained the risks.
Megan Phipps, gave birth to two baby girls at Bryan Health hospital in Lincoln, Nebraska in June. Only one of the babies survived due to the risks associated with premature births, according to the hospital.
She gave birth to a girl named Riley on June 11, who passed away only 12 days after being born. Her second daughter, Reece, was born on June 12. Both of the babies were born weighing less than one pound.
Reece, however, continued to survive. She needed plenty of medical intervention, including a dozen blood transfusions and a ventilator for 45 days.
Phipps said she promised her baby ‘that as long as she kept fighting, that I would keep fighting with her. And she did.’
And on November 2, weighing a healthy eight pounds, she was discharged and sent home to live at home with her mom and dad, Dillon Martin.
Reese is the youngest baby ever born at that particular hospital to survive.
‘She is a true miracle,’ Kallie Gertsch, a nurse who cared for Reese at the hospital’s NICU, told the Lincoln Journal Star. ‘[She’s] definitely the biggest success that I have witnessed.’
Reece does have some health problems, and had to go back to the hospital after developing metapneumovirus. She also had a gastrostomy-button place to dispense food through her stomach, and needed to go back on oxygen.
Miraculously, Reece was taken home with Phipps on Nov. 2.
Kallie Gertsch, a nurse in Bryan’s NICU who cared for the infant called her a miracle.
“She is a true miracle,” said Gertsch per the Kearney Hub.
Phipps is sharing her story in hopes of helping others who might be going through the same situation. She doesn’t want them to give up on hope of a miracle.
Source: abcnews.go.com, people.com
