Woman With Double Uterus Has Healthy Twin Girls

UPDATE Dec 23, 2023 9:30 AM CST

An Alabama woman with a rare double uterus and an even rarer double pregnancy gave birth to healthy twin girls Roxi and Rebel a few days before their Dec. 25 due date. The girls were delivered safely after Kelsey Hatcher spent a combined 20 hours in labor, AL.com reports. The first girl, from Hatcher's right uterus, was delivered vaginally at 7:45pm on Dec. 19 and the second, from her left uterus was delivered via cesarean section around 10 hours later on Dec. 20. Twins usually share a uterus and while doctors describe Hatcher's pregnancy as one in a million, "I think it is safe to call the girls fraternal twins," says Dr. Richard Davis, an obstetrician who helped with the birthing plan. "At the end of the day, it was two babies in one belly at the same time. They just had different apartments."

Nov 13, 2023 8:40 AM CST

Kelsey Hatcher is set to receive quite the Christmas gift this year: Dec. 25 is the due date for her twin girls, which will give her and her husband, Caleb, a total of five children ages 7 and under. But while finding out they had two little ones on the way was a big surprise for the Hatchers, the Alabama woman's pregnancy was a big surprise for much of the medical world: She has a double uterus, each with its own cervix, and she's now pregnant in both uteri, reports WVTM. The outlet notes that Hatcher has long known about her anatomical anomaly, which is unusual enough, but this virtually unseen type of pregnancy adds another layer to her extraordinary experience.

"Very, very rare," obstetrics and gynecology specialist Dr. Shweta Patel tells WVTM. "OB-GYNs go their whole careers without seeing anything like this." "Maybe three per 1,000 women might have that," concurs the University of Alabama at Birmingham's Dr. Richard Davis, who specializes in high-risk pregnancy. "And then the probability of you having a twin in each horn is really crazy." Citing the Mayo Clinic, People explains that a female fetus typically has two separate tubes that eventually join together to form the uterus; in cases like Hatcher's, however, the tubes never fuse, and two separate organs are formed, with either one cervix that both share, or a cervix that forms for each uterus.

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How Hatcher's babies come into this world will surely be interesting: Davis tells WVTM that contractions for each uterus may start at different times, and that the infants could be born hours, days, or even weeks apart. The twin girls will join the Hatchers' other three children, ages 7, 4, and 2—and the couple says this is it for them. "The third one was [supposed to be] our last one," Kelsey Hatcher notes. "We're grateful for the blessings for sure. But this will definitely be the end." (More pregnant women stories.)