A woman with two vaginas took 25 years to find out about her rare condition

A 25-year-old woman has opened up about the moment she found out she had two reproductory systems, while she was giving birth to her son.

The new mum took to TikTok to explain her condition and how she always suspected something "wasn't right".

Brittany Jacobs has two vaginas, two cervixes, and two uteruses, as the result of a rare condition called uterus didelphys.

She says she had always had two painful periods, sex had previously been painful, both for her and her husband, and she carried her baby bump on just one side.

Despite these signs, doctors had never found the condition and despite undergoing regular smear tests, until she was in labour.

"I've always considered myself to have a really high pain tolerance but my periods were so bad I would cry. I always bled out of my tampons. When I was pregnant with my first kid, I only carried on one side. Sex was really painful. I got two periods, every month that were normal cycle, but they were two separate periods," she said in the video.

It wasn't until she was more than 30 hours into labour with her son that a nurse told her about her condition.

"Oh honey, you have two vaginas, two cervixes and two uteruses," she recalled the nurse telling her.

"For 25 years no one noticed or knew what it was."

Jacobs' video series on the topic began with her answering the question: "What is something a doctor completely ignored you about when clearly there was something wrong?"

In another TikTok video, Jacobs explained her body has two vaginal openings, divided by a vaginal septum, "like the septum in your nose, but thicker".

"It separates the vaginal canals into one and two, but it's like an inch or two up inside the one exterior hole. I always thought it was a hymen," she said.

She has only two ovaries and two fallopian tubes but also has two cervixes, two uteruses and two vaginas.

Jacobs has been open about her condition, posting a series of videos responding to questions from internet users about it, including whether it is possible to get pregnant in the two uteruses at the same time (yes, but the babies are not considered to be twins).

In a series of informative videos, she goes into the scientific details of how the condition develops and why it is so rare to be diagnosed with uterus didelphys.

This article was first published by the NZ Herald and is republished here with permission.