When Ellie Curran first got her period at 12 years old, she was housebound with ‘crazy’ intense pain, and ‘leaking through everything’.
‘I thought maybe this is what a bad period is meant to feel like,’ the now 21-year-old says.
But her experience was far from normal, and during a routine appendicectomy at age 18, doctors found she had a rare gynaecological condition.
During the operation, they discovered Ellie had two wombs, although it would take many months for her to get a final diagnosis of Complete Bicorporeal Uterus.
The main symptom of this medical condition is a deep external indentation at the top of the uterus, which creates two distinct heart-shaped uterine cavities, fully separated by a wall of tissue.
In other words, the womb is split into two.
‘[Doctors] said there seems to be two uteruses but didn’t say too much when I had my appendix removed,’ Ellie, a call centre worker from Derry, explains.
‘They weren’t too sure what was going on. Because I was too young I felt they dismissed me. I’ve struggled with my periods ever since.’
While her condition was initially spotted by doctors, Ellie was left to continue her daily life as normal, and the excruciating pain it caused began to impact her work, as she had to go to the toilet ‘every two seconds’ while on her period.
‘It affects my daily life,’ she explains. ‘I have no social life while I’m on [my period] because it’s too sore to go out of the house.’
After countless A&E trips because of the pain, Ellie was eventually referred for laparoscopic surgery in January 2025, where doctors investigated and determined exactly what condition her uterus was in.
This only confirmed what she already knew though, as while on the waiting list in October 2024, she paid for a private scan, which appeared to show she had two cervixes.
Complete Bicorporeal Uterus
What is it?
Bicorporeal uterus is where the presence of an external indentation at the top of the uterus in the middle is greater than 50% of the thickness of the uterine wall. This meant the uterine body, which may occasionally include the cervix and/or vagina, may be divided
entirely or partially by this indentation.
This leaves you with two separate cavities, according to the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
How does it happen?
It happens with there is a failure of fusion of the paired Mullerian duct structures (which are responsible for forming your uterus, fallopian tubes, cervix, and upper vagina as a foetus) in the developing embryo, before you’re born.
Months later, she was also diagnosed with premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) – a very severe form of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) where you can get mood swings, and feel angry and anxious – in November 2025.
In addition, doctors also revealed endometriosis – a condition where cells similar to those in the lining of the womb (uterus) grow in other parts of the body – was partly to blame for the extreme pain she was feeling, having wrapped around her bowel.
‘They think I might have an extra kidney too,’ Ellie says. ‘I’ll have an MRI to check what stage my endometriosis is at, too.’
It’s still a very much ongoing process, and the 21-year-old is worried about how her Bicorporeal Uterus diagnosis will affect her life.
Ellie continues: ‘At birth this condition kind of happened. It’s weird, I’ve never met anyone with it.
‘Obviously I do want to have kids quite soon, but getting told different things [by doctors] is hard. Because of the two uterus cavities, my left one is bigger than my right, so I would have to fall pregnant on my left to be more safe.
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‘When I went for my surgery they did say the whole point of the surgery was to remove my endometriosis, but they didn’t because it was too dangerous.’
The young woman says her friends and family are ‘really shocked’, especially because the condition is so uncommon, affecting just 0.4% of women.
‘It’s constantly in my head, “how has this thing happened to me?”,’ she adds.
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Ellie’s now on a waitlist for an MRI and will have a follow up appointment after her surgery in May 2026, to discuss treatment plans.
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