London - When Sadie Brittle lost her baby to an ectopic pregnancy she was devastated.
But she had an incredible surprise when she discovered three months later that she was still carrying her lost baby’s twin.
The second foetus growing in her womb had been hidden on hospital scans by heavy internal bleeding which she suffered after collapsing at work with a potentially deadly ruptured fallopian tube eight weeks into her pregnancy.
Mrs Brittle, 32, had surgery to remove the ectopic pregnancy – when an embryo implants outside the womb, usually in the fallopian tube – which had caused the rupture.
But weeks later, she took a pregnancy test because her stomach was still swollen – and discovered the second pregnancy.
The phenomenon, where a viable embryo implants as normal in the womb and the other is ectopic, is known as a heterotopic pregnancy and affects just one in 30 000 natural conceptions.
Mrs Brittle has now spoken of her joy after she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. On Thursday, as she cradled eight-day-old Teddie at home with husband Gary, the hairdresser said: “I was devastated after my ectopic pregnancy in April. I’d lost a lot of blood when it ruptured and I was told I couldn’t work for three months.
“We had a holiday to Spain at the end of the three months. I was on a sun lounger and wondered why my stomach was still big and quite high up, so I took a test.”
Her GP confirmed the pregnancy after the couple and daughter Summer, aged four, flew home. Mrs Brittle said there was “no way” she had got pregnant after the surgery. A midwife initially thought her symptoms were caused by hormones from the first failed pregnancy, but a scan then revealed she was 19 weeks pregnant.
Teddie was born via caesarean section last Thursday, weighing 6lb 10oz. Mrs Brittle, from Tamworth, Staffordshire, said: “I was just so relieved that everything was okay. I was a high risk pregnancy so had so many more scans than usual.” Her husband, 37, a builder, added: “It really was a roller coaster pregnancy?... We were so relieved, but it was a birth of mixed emotions as he should have had a brother or sister.”
Symptoms of ectopic pregnancy include stomach pain, vaginal bleeding and pain in the tip of the shoulder.
Daily Mail