Meet Lauren Knowles, another of our guest speakers at our upcoming Gynae. Health Public Forum on 20th October 2018.
Lauren will give an account of her personal experience of being diagnosed with a complete molar pregnancy in December 2014.
A positive pregnancy test is usually followed by the joy of a newborn 9 months later. But there are times when a pregnancy ends in a loss. A molar pregnancy is one of those.
During a healthy pregnancy, the placenta grows inside your uterus. It nourishes your baby through the umbilical cord. With a molar pregnancy, tissue in the uterus becomes an abnormal mass or tumor instead of a placenta.
There are two types of molar pregnancies – partial and complete.
A partial one is when both the placenta and embryo (fertilized egg) are abnormal.
In a complete molar pregnancy (the type Lauren had) an empty egg containing no maternal information is fertilised. It attaches to the uterus wall and then fills the womb with an abnormal mass, growing in such a way that a pregnancy would, producing huge amounts of the HCG hormone and making you feel and look pregnant on the inside and out.
Only in reality, and very cruelly – no baby is there at all.
Lauren became one of the very few cases in WA to develop into the worst case it could – she became resistant to the first routine options of treatments offered and required months of harsh chemotherapy drugs. She is now doing well and has two beautiful children.
You can follow Lauren’s story on https://www.facebook.com/rainbowsahead/