Lottie Ryan has revealed doctors discovered she had a rare condition while she was pregnant with her son.
The RTÉ star and her husband Fabio Aprile welcomed a baby boy named Wolf at 33 weeks in 2021.
Speaking to The Baby Tribe, Lottie recalled: “My first appointment when they were doing a scan, the poor woman who was scanning me, she was scanning away… very calm, and then she just kind of… I could see her going back and forth over my stomach a couple of times.
“It’s a bit worrying when somebody does that. They were all looking at the screen and I was like ‘can I just ask if everything is okay?’
“They said ‘everything is fine…did you know you had a bicornuate uterus?’ I was like ‘A what?'”
A bicornuate uterus, also known as a heart-shaped womb, is a congenital condition in which the two sides of the uterus do not join completely during foetal development.
It’s a rare, congenital condition that can cause complications during pregnancy.
Lottie continued: “They said to me it was apparently hard to get pregnant when you have this, so I was like ‘Jesus I didn’t know any of this….. I feel very lucky’, and I said, ‘is baby is okay?’
“They said the baby was completely fine, but you are now a high-risk pregnancy.”
Lottie’s son Wolf was born prematurely at 33 weeks in 2021.
Speaking to RSVP magazine about her experience giving birth, the mother-of-one said: “It was probably the scariest thing I have ever been through…”
“My situation was unique to me but it was difficult. You are responsible for another person’s life and that is a lot of pressure to have on your shoulders.”
“I didn’t think I was in labour because it was eight weeks before my due date and I thought it couldn’t possibly be labour.
“I stayed at home a little bit longer than I should have because I didn’t think it was possible to spontaneously go into labour that early.
“Thankfully, I got to the hospital on time but from the time I walked in the door to when he was born it was under two hours.”
