The First Uterus Transplant in the U.S. Failed, But 9 Women Still Have Hope

Huge news was announced earlier this week when a woman became the United State’s first uterus transplant recipient, but sadly the story does not have a happy end (yet).

The procedure, which has successfully been performed in Sweden on nine women so far, five of whom went on to have babies, is obviously no easy task. Doctors at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, where the surgery was done, actually traveled to Sweden to learn the procedure at the University of Gothenburg. And unlike Sweden, the U.S. performed the surgery from a deceased donor.

The woman who received the nation’s first transplanted uterus has chosen to remain anonymous, although we do know a few facts about her: her first name is Lindsey, she’s 26 years old, she was born without a uterus, she’s from Texas, she and her husband, Blake, already have three adopted sons, and she is thrilled to have the chance to become pregnant.

“I have prayed that God would allow me the opportunity to experience pregnancy, and here we are at the beginning of that journey,” she said at a news conference, the New York Times revealed. Lindsey was placed in a screening process to assess her eligibility for transplant, and her donation match actually came up almost immediately. Without any promise of actually being chosen for the surgery or any real promise that the surgery would be a success, Lindsey had paid her own way and traveled over 1,000 miles just to have the chance to be part of the trial, in hopes of someday experiencing pregnancy.

“I crave that experience,” she told the New York Times at the time. “I want the morning sickness, the backaches, the feet swelling. I want to feel the baby move. That is something I’ve wanted for as long as I can remember.”

Unfortunately for Lindsey, the transplant, first thought to be a success, failed only a day after the surgery was done. The cause of the organ failure was unclear, but doctors say they will be analyzing just what went wrong. The clinic, however, does plan to proceed with the nine other planned transplants.

While uterus transplants offer a new kind of hope in uncharted territory for women hoping to get pregnant, the procedure, obviously, is not for every woman who is suffering from infertility, and it’s definitely not a “quick fix” to get pregnant by any means. If the transplant is successful, the woman will still have to undergo IVF to get pregnant and she will have to have her uterus removed via another surgery after one or two babies.

The procedure is only an option for a select group of women who meet certain qualifications for the transplant. The New York Times reports that about 50,000 women in the United States could be candidates for a uterus transplant. These women may have to have their uteruses removed because of cancer or other medical conditions and some women are actually born without a uterus, a condition called Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome (MRKH). About one in 4,500 baby girls have the disorder and are born without a uterus, which actually seems like a surprisingly high number when you think about it.

Jen Irwin is a woman who has MRKH and runs the blog When Life Doesn’t Give You A Uterus, Make Lemonade, detailing her life as a woman without a uterus. Without transplant as an option available at the time, Jen and her husband made the decision to pursue adoption when they were ready to grow their family, while other women may be able to pursue IVF using their own eggs if they have them.

When Jen first heard of the uterus transplant plans in the United States back in 2015, she wrote about her feelings that ultimately, she would not be pursuing any type of clinical studies for herself.

“Although I will not personally be contacting the Cleveland Doctors because I already have my heart set on adoption, I am super excited for the MRKH community,” she wrote. “I have never had a strong desire to carry my own child, maybe because I have known about my condition for so long or maybe because it’s not important to me. BUT, I do know there are women out there who would love nothing more than to be able to carry their own children, and I am so thrilled about the future of the uterus transplant. “

For women like Lindsey, who it is reported, is stable and “recovering,” the obstacles they are facing may just be part of a long journey in an effort for women to experience motherhood in a way they may have never thought possible.

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