Mum, 29, stunned at falling pregnant after having her tubes tied in ‘mind-boggling’ case
IN A jaw-dropping medical mystery, a woman became pregnant despite having her tubes tied.
Katrina Wolf-James, 29, underwent a tubal ligation procedure in December 2023, putting her childbearing years behind her - or so she thought.
The mum already had two children, three-year-old Casper and one-year-old Guinevere.
But in September 2024, Katrina found out she was expecting a third baby, which left her stunned.
Katrina was left questioning how the egg made it to her uterus, as she'd had her fallopian tubes completely removed the year before.
She said she was even shown her tubes after the procedure was finished.
Read more on pregnancy
Residing in East Palestine, Ohio, USA, she said: “I’m pregnant after fallopian tube removal. This is incredibly rare!
“I saw my tubes, they were gone, cut out of me.
"So, I really don’t know how the egg shot from the ovary, was floating around in my abdomen and made it to the uterus.”
Tubal ligation is a permanent type of contraception, where the fallopian tubes are blocked or cut to stop sperm meeting an egg.
Most read in Health
It's thought to be 99 per cent effective in preventing further pregnancies.
The heath care professional chose to have her tubes removed when she gave birth to her daughter via C-section.
But she started experiencing telltale pregnancy symptoms, such as tiredness and nausea.
Katrina also noticed her trousers weren’t fitting correctly.
At first, she simply assumed with that she'd been eating a bit too much fast food.
“I was feeling sick after eating a bunch of Wendy’s and I’m like ‘Okay, it’s definitely the Wendy’s. It’s the fast food. It’s got to be,'” Katrina .
“I’m still tired after napping and iced coffee.
"My mother-in-law asks me ‘Could you be pregnant?’ and I’m like, ‘No, it’s medically impossible'."
But Katrina later found out this was in fact the case after visiting OB-GYN who did the surgery.
He told her there was a baby in her womb and that he could pick up a heart beat.
Tubal ligation is a permanent type of contraception, where the fallopian tubes - which connect the ovaries to the womb - are blocked or cut to stop sperm meeting an egg.
The operation is usually done using keyhole surgery and takes 20 to 30 minutes.
The doctor will:
- Make two or three small cuts in your abdomen, near your belly button
- Put gas into your abdomen, to make it easier to see your organs
- Use a long, thin tube with a camera to reach your fallopian tubes
- Block your fallopian tubes, or remove part of the tubes and seal them
- Close the cut in your abdomen using surgical glue or dissolvable stitches
Sterilisation is more than 99 per cent effective at preventing pregnancy.
Source:
Explaining about her near-impossible pregnancy, Katrina said: "Everything was sealed and cauterised shut; there were several people witnessing it.
"My baby made it into the uterus no matter what the odds were.
“It’s mind boggling!"
Read More on The Sun
Katrina is expecting a little girl and planning to name her Eleanor.
She's hoping to get find out how exactly this medical mystery of a pregnancy came about after she gives birth.
