FORT MYERS
If you’ve been trying to have a baby but are having problems conceiving, you are not alone.
In fact, one in five women doesn’t get pregnant after one year of trying.
The most common cause of female infertility is failure to ovulate.
Treatment options include IVF, but what about those women who suffer from other conditions, ones that are not treatable?
After three years of trying, little Indy Pearl Edwards appeared in the world.
“It’s still surreal to me. I get to wake up with her every morning and be like, Oh my gosh, you’re mine forever,” said Kayla Edwards.
Edwards was born with uterine-factory infertility. Her uterus just didn’t function correctly.
“Uterine-factory infertility has for a long, long time been considered the last barrier of infertility. These are women that thought that they would never, ever become pregnant and carry a child and they adapted their lives to that, but it was devastating for them,” said Dr. Liza Johannesson, a gynecological surgeon at Baylor University Medical Center.
It was an untreatable condition until recently.
“A uterine transplantation will give you the ability to carry a pregnancy and to deliver your own child,” Johannesson said.
Johannesson is part of a team studying whether or not a uterine transplant from either a living or deceased donor is a good option for women like Edwards.
They found that out of 33 women who received a transplant, 21 babies have been born. The best candidates for a uterine transplant are healthy women between the ages of 20 and 40. After having a baby, women can decide whether to try for a second child or have the transplanted uterus removed.
“When you can actually get them pregnant and then deliver, the amount of joy you, you can’t describe that,” Johannesson said. “It’s fantastic.”
Three months after her uterine transplant, Kayla tried her first round of IVF. It didn’t work, but eventually, on their last try with their last embryo, it worked.
“I didn’t even think I was pregnant. I had no symptoms. I was like, it didn’t work. And I remember taking a pregnancy test and literally having a panic attack. Like, oh my gosh, we saw the words, pregnant and it was amazing,” Edwards said.
Her pregnancy went as planned.
“I feel like I’m literally holding a miracle every day,” she said.
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