Dejana Vukadinović, BBC journalist
"You are a rare case. You are my first patient with this type of anomaly, and I have been working for over 30 years."
"You seem to have two uteruses."
Sara was told this rare diagnosis by a gynecologist at the student clinic.
She was 20 years old and went for her first check-up as a precaution.
Almost all the women in her family struggled with some gynecological problem.
"Excuse me?" she asked fearfully.
She had heard that people could be born with one kidney or extra fingers, but this information completely confused her.
"'How is that possible? How can a woman have two uteruses?' What does that mean?" she asked as she lay on the bed.
"It happens, but I want to be sure."
"Come back in a month when your period is over," she recalled the doctor's words in an interview with the BBC in Serbian.
The female reproductive organs (uterus, fallopian tubes, vagina, and cervix) are formed by the fusion of Miller's canals still in the early stages of embryonic development.
If this does not happen, two uteruses develop, and two cervixes or two vaginas may also form, explains Snežana Rakić, a gynecologist.
They are diagnosed by ultrasound examination, and symptoms that could indicate these changes include painful menstruation or prolonged bleeding.
In some women, there is almost no bleeding.
"It's something we can't influence, because it happens in early cell division and nature has arranged it that way."
"They are rare cases and the incidence is between 0,3 and 0,7 percent," he tells the BBC in Serbian.
There are no official statistics on the number of women with a rare congenital gynecological anomaly, but estimates that about 8,4 percent of women in the world have some kind of change in their reproductive organs.
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Sarah's story
A month after her first check-up, it was confirmed that Sara was born with two uteruses.
"You have to live with it, there may be problems with the pregnancy, but it's too early to think about that," the doctor tried to reassure her.
Sara had never thought about children until then.
Her two uteruses are equally developed, firm, and she only has one cervix.
"What does that mean?" she asked.
"You're practically bleeding twice. We'll also do a hormone test to see when you're ovulating," was the response.
Women with this type of anomaly can generally get pregnant, but the question is whether they can carry the pregnancy to term, points out gynecologist Rakić.
"They are more prone to frequent miscarriages, because it all depends on which uterus the fetus is in, which cannot be influenced, which is why pregnancy requires special monitoring."
"Some women with a double uterus go into premature labor, and there are also cases where the fetus does not survive."
"Some women with two uteruses are naturally sterile if they have a uterine septum (wall),"
Sara is among them.
She has a septum, and hormone analysis showed that she is not ovulating regularly, which will cause her additional problems in the coming years, including early menopause, the period when a woman stops having a period.
"With a duplex uterus, as this phenomenon is also called, secretions are increased and women can have long-term chronic inflammation," adds the gynecologist.
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Elizabeth's story
Elizabeth Amoah found out she was born with two uteruses, but also two vaginas, relatively late - at the age of 33.
Vagina is located inside the body - it is a muscular canal that connects the uterus to the outside world.
What you can see on the outside, the part that touches your clothes, is the vulva.
Elizabeth's discovery was preceded by painful years accompanied by heavy menstruation, unbearable pain, and frequent vaginal infections.
She was born in Ghana, Africa, but grew up in London, the capital of Great Britain.
She wanted to be a lawyer, but she dropped out of school because she had to work.
These were temporary jobs, as she often got sick.
She kept saying that she wasn't feeling well, that she was in severe pain, but "it was as if no one heard her."
"They thought I was making things up and pretending, telling me I was mentally ill and that I needed treatment for it," Amoah recalled to BBC Serbian.
"I was upset and angry at the same time, because I really wasn't feeling well."
"A person feels when they are feeling bad," he adds.
When she turned 28, she was told that she had multiple fibroids (benign changes on the cervix) and that this was a potential cause of the pain.
She became pregnant very quickly, but gave birth prematurely.
Elizabeth's condition worsened, and it wasn't until 2015 in Germany that she was told that she actually had a rare gynecological condition.
Then she was diagnosed with a severe stage. endometriosis, a chronic, benign, but incurable disease.
"I kept asking myself how they hadn't seen my condition before. How they hadn't seen during those examinations that I had two uteruses and vaginas and that I also had endometriosis."
"I never got an answer," she says, disappointed.
From 2016 to 2018, Elizabeth was on the operating table several times.
They were, he says, difficult but necessary operations.
"When they determined what was wrong with me, I felt relieved."
"I thought, 'I'm not crazy after all, there's really something wrong with me and I feel really bad,'" Amoa says years later.
In the meantime, she was diagnosed with diabetes 2.
"That's the least of my problems now," the 43-year-old adds.
It's been ten years since the first surgery, but the pain still comes back, only now she's learned to live with it.
After a year, she got her first period, even though she was told she was well into menopause.
"I hope I don't end up in the hospital again," he says optimistically.
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Sara's health condition surprised even her friends.
And after so many years, they still make jokes about her.
"Whenever I get back from a gynecological exam, I send my best friend a message - Don't worry, both wombs are fine and in love.."
"The important thing is that they're good. You will forever be my favorite medical phenomenon," her friend wrote.
Elizabeth founded an NGO Speciallady Awareness whose goal is to talk more about women's reproductive health.
She also wrote a book Unspoken identity.
"We should talk about it more, it's not a shame. We need to do more research, so that diagnoses can be made in a timely manner."
"If I had known my condition, many things would have been different," she says.
Her greatest support throughout all these years has been her husband and her immediate and extended family.
"I no longer view my experience as a trauma, but rather as a blessing now," concludes Elizabeth Amoah.
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