A Tale of Two Uteruses (or is it uteri?)

Hey all, hope you had a fab weekend. My good pal Crafty and hubby sure did! They welcomed 6 pound 10 ounce baby girl Samantha into the world Friday. For those of you who were at my b-day BBQ, Crafty was the one who was the size of a house. Also, the trailblazer that she is, she was the only one who had a stroller there with one kid already in it! Congrats to them and best wishes.

I must tell the tale of Crafty for those who don't know, because it MUST be told. As I just told you, Crafty has a child already. He's just over a year old. I know, you're thinking, WHAT? Is she crazy? Having two kids so close together?

Well I will tell you, this was not planned. In fact it was the total opposite.

Crafty has a beautiful son named Dylan, whom I met sometime last fall/winter. She made me laugh with her tales of new motherhood. "I'm not really...maternal" she quipped honestly. I love that about her, she never sugar-coats anything, which was the inspiration for my honesty in this blog. She regaled with stories of Mommy and Baby matinees at the local theatre, and meeting other mommies for coffees to get each other out of the house. Though she was blunt about the challenges, she made it sound rather fun.

In Canada, in order to get government assistance financially for a full year of maternity leave, you must be working somewhere for at least 13 weeks. Crafty was in no rush to get pregnant again and had an IUD installed (hehe) t0 prevent any "accidents". So imagine her shock when she started waking up queesy and feeling super tired while she was still on mat leave!

She visited the doctor and asked if her IUD was working properly. "Your IUD is working fine," he told her, "in THIS uterus." SAY WHAT? That's right ladies and germs, she was told that apparently she had TWO, count 'em, TWO uteruses! (not sure about the pluralization of uterus, so please excuse me) The double uterus often goes undetected until something like this happens, as the second uterus lies dormant, or flattened out against the vaginal wall and doesn't show up in ultrasounds. This condition is rare, but affects more women than you would think.

So needless to say, this baby Samantha was "meant-to-be". Anyway, this is such a unique story that I had to share with you. Unfortunately, Crafty can't take a proper mat leave now, but instead is taking a 6 month leave of absence, after which her husband will take a 6 month leave, so it will all work out. Can wait to meet little Sammie and experience a day in the life of a couple with two babies. Will tell you how it goes.

Countdown to Thursday's life-altering ultrasound is on! Stay tuned MFM fans.