What It ’s Like to Give Birth after a Uterus Transplant

This month, Kayla and Lance Edwards welcomed their daughter Indy Pearl Edwards into the world, and became the fourth couple to have a child through the uterus transplant program at Baylor Scott & White Health’s Baylor University Medical Center. The couple would have had a great love story even without those extraordinary circumstances. They attended elementary school together in Vancouver, Wash., lost touch, and then reconnected through social media more than a decade later. After months of chatting through the game “Words with Friends,” they finally went on a date in January 2013 and got engaged about a year later. Kayla always knew she wanted a family, but starting her own wasn’t easy. When she was 16 years old, she was diagnosed with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, a congenital disorder that causes girls to be born either without or with an underdeveloped uterus. She stayed active in MRKH communities online, and eventually learned about a new option for women like her: uterus donation and transplantation. The first-ever birth from a transplanted uterus happened in Sweden in 2014, the year the couple married. Baylor, one of the first U.S. institutions to perform the procedure, opened its clinical trial two years later, prompting Kayla, 28, and Lance, 27, to move to Dallas. This is the couple’s story, lightly edited and condensed for clarity. TIME: If you can put it into words, how are you feeling right now? Kayla: It&...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized embargoed study medicine Source Type: news