I gave birth using a dead woman’s womb after being deemed infertile… I’m proof there’s hope for millions of women like me
In 2020, Amanda Gruendell gave birth via a womb that wasn’t always hers.
The uterus came from a dead woman she never met and, miraculously, it carried life once more.
Gruendell told the Daily Mail she decided on this extreme transplant procedure after all her other attempts at motherhood came up short.
She is now one of only a few people on Earth to have delivered a child from a transplanted womb, and what once might have sounded like science fiction can now lead to the phenomenal birth of a breathing, crying, baby girl.
After Gruendell wasn’t able to conceive naturally – she had a rare condition which prevented her womb from developing properly while in utero herself – she and her ex-husband explored adoption and surrogacy.
Neither avenue to parenthood worked out for the couple, with one adoption falling through just before they were due to pick up their child.
All of this put a strain on the couple’s marriage and the pair divorced in 2016.
It was then that one of Gruendell’s friends suggested she sign up for an experimental uterus transplant with the Cleveland Clinic. The trial later led to the first birth via uterine transplant in North America in 2019 – that mother was in her mid-20s.
Gruendell ‘jumped at the chance’ and in January 2020, after a battery of tests and a temporary trial suspension, she received the implant. She was 33.
Amanda Gruendell, 41, from Utah, is pictured above with her daughter Grace following the uterus transplant
While the procedure is becoming more widespread — a woman in the UK delivered a child via a transplanted uterus in February — a womb transplant was still considered experimental at the time.
But, she was willing to take on the risks.
Gruendell, now 37, told the Daily Mail she had wanted a child for as long as she could remember.
‘When my brother was born, I was about eight, and I just wanted to be so involved with him,’ she recalled. ‘I just knew from then that being a mother was what I wanted to do.’
Gruendell is one of 3,700 women in the US who don’t have a womb due to a rare condition called condition called Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome.
The Syracuse, Utah, native was given the earth shattering diagnosis at 16 years old when she hadn’t yet started menstruating.
Once accepted into the Cleveland Clinic trial, she was slated to receive a womb from an unnamed donor who died before turning 40 and had previously given birth.
It took 14 hours for doctors to complete the implant surgery where they attached the donor uterus to Gruendell’s blood vessels.
As part of the procedure, a small part of the donor’s vaginal tissue was sewn to Gruendell’s vagina – a step doctors call a ‘major technical challenge’ – to ensure the uterus attached properly to the recipient’s cervix and vagina.
Gruendell was also put on a cocktail of 10 immunosuppressant drugs to stop her body from rejecting the new organ.
Her ovaries worked perfectly – they develop from different cells than the uterus – which opened the door to in vitro fertilization (IVF), where eggs are fertilized in a lab and then transplanted into a uterus.
Even still, despite the transplant operation being a success, doctors said there was only a 50 percent chance IVF would result in a pregnancy for Gruendell and her new husband John.
Since then, a 2022 study from JAMA Surgery, found that out of 33 people who received a donor uterus in the US, 19 had delivered at least one child.
She is pictured above while pregnant. She said it was amazing to feel her daughter kicking and she even felt contractions too before the C-section
While some hopeful parents try several times to conceive through IVF, Gruendell got pregnant after the first embryo created using Amanda’s egg and John’s sperm was implanted.
Thirty-seven weeks later, she gave birth via cesarean section to her daughter, Grace.
Both Gruendell and Dr. Uma Perni, a member of this transplant team, said there is nothing unusual about uterine transplant pregnancies compared to someone born with a uterus. The mother of one said the nine months passed largely without issue.
She told the Daily Mail she experienced severe bleeding at week 16, which led to a night spent in the emergency room, and that she had a pain in her abdomen doctors think may have been linked to a rib.
Neither incident was caused by her new womb.
‘The most remarkable thing about these pregnancies, including Amanda’s, is how unremarkable they are,’ Dr. Perni told the Daily Mail.
When Grace was born, Gruendell said, ‘I just grabbed her when the doctors came to show me.’
‘The doctors weren’t quite ready for that, and they had to take her away again for a minute, but I was just so happy when I held her,’ she said recounting the memory. ‘The moment I heard that cry, it was the best moment of my life.’
Gruendell was one of 10 patients on the trial, eight of whom received transplants. The remaining two rejected the new organ, but neither died as a result of the complication.
Four of the women – including Gruendell – had live births after their transplants. Two others did not get pregnant, though their transplants were successful.
Grundell told the Daily Mail she recognizes that every operation comes with risks. ‘For me, the pros outweighed the cons with a uterus transplant.
‘I wanted the ability to have a baby kick inside me, and I wanted to be able to experience what it was like to give birth and to have that bond with the child.
Grace, now a healthy and boisterous four-year-old, has medically progressed well since being born. The family just celebrated her birthday on March 22.
‘She loves learning,’ Gruendell said, calling out her daughter’s affection for school, numbers and reading.
‘She wants us to read all the books all day long, every day, all day, she got interested in Barbies this year, too, and balance bikes, playing outside with friends.’
Grace is pictured above after birth. Gruendell said she grabbed her baby when doctors showed her
Gruendell is pictured above with her husband John and daughter Grace. John also has two other children
Gruendell pictured above during her pregnancy after the womb transfer
Gruendell has been trying for a second child since Grace was born, and has now undergone four additional cycles of IVF.
The first ended in a miscarriage, and the second was thwarted by an improperly thawed embryo. She had a fourth embryo implanted on Wednesday and is hoping this one will take.
Gruendell says she’ll try twice more, adding she still has a positive mindset because, now, she has a daughter.
After her final round of IVF, doctors will remove the transplanted uterus.
While there’s no time limit for how long the organ can be implanted, doctors will remove it if the patient is no longer looking to conceive or if the accompanying medications start to cause kidney damage. The latter is possible with immunosuppressant drugs and would be viewed as potentially life threatening.
Since beginning the trial, Gruendell has had to remain on medications including immunosuppressants prednisone (which she said caused weight gain), tacrolimus and Mycophenolate Mofetil.
She said the drugs have weakened her immune system, which has left her susceptible to the frequent exposure to illness that often comes with having a toddler in the house.
She is also taking antibiotics regularly to fight infections, and needs to closely watch her salt intake to hopefully prevent kidney damage.
Gruendell said the procedure was ‘absolutely’ worth it for other women who are struggling to have children.
‘Every day, every milestone, every fit, all of the things that I get to experience now. It was all worth it for this bundle of joy that I get to enjoy,’ she said.
