So for a while now I have been debating as to whether or not I should put my story online..
But recently I had more problems that I thought might be connected to my surgery, and (like I did when I was pregnant) I googled it. Basically you can find nothing helpful online about having two utureses. Its in webmd, but it just tells the condition, it doesnt tell you what can happen when you are pregnant with two utureses. There are also some "yahoo! questions" that ladies have put on there but they are few and far between and generally are put up years ago, so its hard to ask questions, since they arent still checking their questions...
so.
Im putting it up. NOT to gain sympothy for the pain of it, because i wouldnt have had it any other way. But for a few other reasons.
1. to put a real story out there that has a positive ending and some information that others might not know (for instance my doctors were very genuinely suprised that one of the utureses had made an infection. If someone else had the same symptoms I had they could reference this as a possiblity to their doctors
2. to be available for questions. in case someone does stumble upon this
and 3 and the most important one. To give God the glory for this miracle, its not my belief that i should hide it.
so here it is. its gross so if you are squimish dont read.
also i dont remember everything so sorry if its disjointed.
I found out about the second uturus because one night i started to have what i thought were contractions. this was about in the 4th month. so if i was having contractions i was having a miscarage. I went in and they found "something" as the nurse described it she could see fluid and it was obviously being contained by something. But that hospital is a small one so i spent the night (in the early morning the doctors got together to look at my ultrasound and discuss it) but they had never seen this before so i was transferred to another hospital in a larger city. This started a week long visit in which we were told (after numerous tests) that i had 2 uteruses and 2 cervixs and 1 kidney. they wanted to look further to find if the two uteruses "communicated" with each other, or were joined by fallopian tubes, but the only way they could do that was to open me up, which wouldnt have been safe while pregnant. they did find that the uterus not holding the baby was reacting in a weird way by making a discharge (we still dont know why it did that) but either way the uterus was in pain because the cervix that was connected to that uterus was very small so it was getting backed up with this discharge it was making. and they couldnt dialate me to get it out because that might put me in labor. so we were stuck there. a few days after the hospital though the discharge came out (it was really gross) and so the pain was mucccch better and we thought maybe that hurdle was over.
Now as previously stated this post is mostly out there for women with two utureses, who are pregnant, and find themselves in alot of unexpected pain. My doctor seemed concerned over the amount of pain I was in through my pregnancy (by the end I was taking the biggest dilaudid I could, almost every two hours. Which I DO NOT RECOMMEND) she thought that maybe I was kinda whimpy. Or the utures the baby was in was smaller than normal (hard to tell actual size with a baby in it) and possibly in alot of pain from being stretched. Or that yes the discharge could be a bit backed up. But as it was also coming out of me that didnt seem likely. I assume there is some pain for a "normal" two uturus pregnancy. But if u find yourself in ALOT of pain.. Please keep reading..
second stay in the hospital was only a few weeks before i went into labor. it was different than the first because of where the pain was at, it was all over my abdomen and back as opposed to in the one place where my uterus is. they couldnt find anything wrong with me though.. i had no fever, nothing showed up on blood tests, ultrasounds.. and so on.. and they decided it could just be pain from the two uterus situation, which since that isnt normal it was hard for them to tell what i should be expecting. so i went home with even stronger painkillers (something i really didnt like taking while pregnant) and unfortunatly it only felt like it was getting worse. they also decided to induce me on february 13th.
the days before my water broke the pain was getting worse and worse to the point where i would have to take two or three of the pain killers (which you are definetly supposed to only take one) in order to sleep or not be just screaming in pain. i couldnt walk, id lost weight... it got pretty frustrating :)
especially knowing we couldnt figure out what specifically was wrong...then one night i had finally fallen asleep and woke up thinking i was peeing myself, got to the bathroom with the help of josh and figured out, that yeah this was my water breaking so we went into the hospital.
this is the bluriest part :)
at the hospital they decide to go along and let me try to have a vaginal birth. i got an epidural (at this point with all the painkillers i figured it didnt matter..) and got to the point of pushing. i pushed for about twenty minutes but with each push louisas heartbeat would go way down and then spike way back up until it became extreme enough to be a problem and the doctor said we have to do an emergency c section. they tried to just do it with the epidural but i could feel it and started to panic so they put me to sleep. unfortunatly i woke up in the middle of the surgery.. i couldnt feel anything.. but i could see and hear everything, and unfortunalty couldnt even blink to indicate i was awake. also they had put a tube down my throat while i was asleep and when i woke up during the surgery with that in i couldnt breathe naturally and started to panic that i was suffocating (later josh told me the tube was there to inflate my lungs for me, so it makes sense why i couldnt breathe myself) but anyway i didnt know that.. so i can honestly say that was for sure the worst twenty minutes of my life. i thought i was dying from not being able to draw breathe, i couldnt move, and couldnt figure out what the doctors were doing.. because it was pretty apparent this wasnt a c section anymore... after twenty minutes or so of this i could move my fingers and blink and i heard one doctor notice i was awake and then thank God i wasnt awake anymore. (I left this part in for any poor souls like me who might wake up in surgery. Please relax and know u are breathing without help! Do not try to make yourself breath!)So. apparently when they went in to do the c section they had alot of trouble getting her out, and the reason why was that the discharge from the other uterus had backed up, gone up my fallopian tubes, into the other uterus, into my stomach and basically everywhere. they told me later that when they knew they had to do surgery and made the other cut (i have a giant upside down T on my stomach) they couldnt even tell what was what organ and had to call in trama surgeons to figure it out. apparently things were stuck together and basically unidentifiable. the uterus that had no baby was later described to me as "hamburger meat" which was disgusting. they said they could put their finger right through it (and unfortunately they did because they had to sew that up) so anyway, alot of organs were very infected and some ruined.they took out the ruined ones, which included both uteruses, fallopian tubes, and my appendix. they told me they took out my ovarys too but today told me they couldnt find them in the remains so they think i still have those (obviously im getting tests to find out)
the happiest part was louisa was fine :D
she came out with no infection! 3 pounds 8 ounces. she was basically your average premie, which was the best we could hope for, and she is doing wonderfully!Know that recovery from any surgery is very difficult and long. It is June and I find I still don't have as much energy as I used to.
I hope this helped anyone who was in my situation! If u have a story I would love to hear it!
Love and prayers!
Amy
