This is how it all started. Yes, this blog is about style, luxury and intentional living, so you might think this an odd place to start and obviously off-topic (and I’d agree with you). Even so, I am sharing my story for anyone who need it.

what this article is about

This is about my TTC and pregnancy journey and what I learned from carrying B in a unicornuate uterus. 

It is a relatively rare condition – only occurring in about one in 1,000 women, less if you consider each specific variation of it. It is not well known – I certainly hadn’t heard about it until I was told I had one. There is also no established community for women with this condition that I know of. Yet, when I found out, I wanted nothing more than information and community.

What in the world is it? What are the implications? What has happened to other women with the same condition? And most importantly, what does it mean for me and my baby journey? Relevant statistics are already scarce, and with what little I could find it was not always helpful to be told that I may fall above or below the average. Statistics are just statistics.

For that same reason, this post contains some very specific and personal things. Because while it may be helpful (or just pacifying) to a degree to read about the hypothetical “average” woman, I myself find the specifics in real, personal stories valuable, relatable, and in some cases, comforting (even though I understand that it likely would not apply to me personally).

what this article is not about

If you were searching for cute Halloween costumes, how your baby is one of a kind (all babies are!), or a unique sleeping pattern for newborns, this is probably not for you.

Unicornu-what??

A quick search online will give you the basics of a unicornuate uterus (one example). If you are here, you probably know all about it. When I did my obligatory Google search after getting the news at the doctor’s office, I was overwhelmed and distraught. Overwhelmed because it has what seemed to be a million variations, each with more confusing terminology. Any information I had seemed more mind-twisting than informative. The human body is complex and nuanced – surely this condition does not define or seal the fate of my journey?

In case you think like me and find context helpful – I have a unicornuate uterus with a left non-communicating rudimentary horn. Basically, I have just half the anatomy of a uterus, plus a little horn-shaped structure (a.k.a. what would’ve been the other half of the uterus) on the right side. The horn leads nowhere because I don’t have a right fallopian tube.

How was I just finding out about this now, after over 35 years of living with it? Luckily, the left tube can technically move around and pick up eggs from both ovaries (biology is awesome). It doesn’t work perfectly, though, and a mature egg goes to waste some of the months. This explained why it was so difficult for me to conceive at all. But knowing doesn’t solve the problem. And the diagnosis called for no treatment other than an expectation adjustment. 

This was also devastating. See, I got the news during an exam after an early miscarriage. In what had already seemed like a hike up the Half Dome that was our fertility journey, it was like finding out that we were actually trying to summit Mount Everest. In addition to the challenges posed by my missing fallopian tube, due to the shape of my uterus, we were now facing potential issues with implantation, increased likelihood of miscarriage and restricted fetal growth, and elevated risk of breech, preterm labor, and needing a c-section. The silver lining (though it didn’t seem like it at the time) in all of this new information was that none of it said that I couldn’t have a healthy pregnancy. So we kept trying. One step at a time, right? 

Baby in a unicornuate uterus

And one day, the stars aligned. Fast forward nine months, I am now the proud (and sleep-deprived) mama of a beautiful baby girl. It was by no means an easy pregnancy, but I count my blessings everyday that ultimately, my condition had more impact on my headspace than the outcome of the pregnancy. Purely conjecture on my part: I’d like to believe that the baby didn’t care much about the shape of its pre-birth home either. 

That said, having this condition did make a difference to how I experienced pregnancy in more ways than one.

Physically

As can be predicted, I felt most of the pains and twinges, especially those related to uterus growth and stretching, exclusively on the left side of my body. Most of the kicks and stretch marks too. My belly got bigger overall, but it looked slightly rounder from one side than the other. The baby settled into her final position pretty early on (I’d say at about six months), presumably because there stopped being enough space for her to move around. Instead, she devoted her energy to consistent, reassuring kicks all the way until she was ready to come out.

Mentally

While trying to get pregnant, I had come to appreciate how miraculous a birth is. So how many things must go right to make it happen (and so many can go wrong). My miscarriage, and subsequently finding out about this condition, propelled me to find as much explanation as I could for a problem that made no sense to me.

At helpless times, any action items with the potential to make a difference make me feel empowering. This book provides lots of dos and don’ts, which I found helpful. At each prenatal appointment, I went prepared with a list of questions. Some, IMO, are good questions to ask: Does the “sleeping on your left side” rule apply to me? Was I having false contractions daily from five months or was it just the baby sticking her bum out and causing a hardening on the left side of my belly? It was difficult to get a straight answer to these questions online (not surprisingly) or from my healthcare providers (more surprisingly). I also had a lot of questions related to my condition that most people probably wouldn’t think to ask. Thankfully, I was repeatedly reassured by my providers that the pregnancy looked like any other, at least on the ultrasound images. 

This is not to say that having a unicornuate uterus will not affect the outcome of a pregnancy. It could. It did with mine. B was born over a pound lighter than what my last ultrasound had estimated. The risks are real. Knowing what I know now, I’d still prefer to go into a pregnancy with eyes wide open, even if that means worrying about things that in retrospect I didn’t need to. However, it is equally if not more important to keep perspective – after all, many women with this condition don’t even know they had it until they undergo a c-section after a healthy pregnancy. 

But if you’re someone attempting to navigate the condition while trying to conceive, like I was, I hope you take away from this whatever you need: inspiration, information, perspective, community. My story will not be your story, but at the very least, I want to let you know that you are not alone.

How did you find out about this condition? If you have it too, what do you find most challenging? What have you found helpful? I would love to hear from you.

xo