When Jennifer Gobrecht was just a teen, she learned news that would alter her future forever: She'd been born without a uterus, which meant that her hopes of ever becoming pregnant and giving birth naturally were not possible. But what doctors (and Gobrecht) couldn't have known at the time, is that by the time she was actually ready for motherhood, modern medicine would find a way to make it happen. According to CNN, 33-year-old Gobrecht finally did give birth — after receiving a successful womb transplant from a deceased patient.
In November, Gobrecht and her husband Drew welcomed their "miracle" baby, Benjamin Thomas.
Jennifer had taken part in an ongoing trial through Penn Medicine to study uterine transplantation as a treatment option for women struggling with infertility.
"Benjamin means so much, not just to Drew and I, but to so many others, and hopefully he'll be able to inspire other couples to try this because it worked and he's here," said Jennifer, who gave birth via cesarean section. The uterus was removed after the birth.
Jennifer says there were signs something was "different" about her when she was a teenager, and a doctor eventually confirmed it.
She was born with a rare condition called Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome, or MRKH, and never got her period. Jennifer learned the news at 17, and just a few years later, she met her future husband, Drew.
"We were friends first, and I'm always transparent with my friends, letting them know, 'Hey, I have this condition, it's something about me but it's not completely defining who I am,'" Jennifer said.
Their relationship quickly blossomed, and according to Jennifer, their vision of a future together soon included a family.
"When Drew and I started dating romantically, we always knew that we'd have a family of some sort, whether it be through adoption or surrogacy," she said. "That was always our vision that we had."
But even their "vision" couldn't compare to the joy they're now experiencing.
The first US birth to occur after a womb transplant happened in 2017, when a mother gave birth to a healthy baby boy in Texas.
It happened at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, after the unnamed mother received a uterus from a living donor. At the time, eight other mothers had undergone the revolutionary procedure, but all of them had been conducted in Sweden, CBS This Morning reported. In the three years that have followed, several more babies have been born through this procedure as well.
But Gobrecht's case is even more unusual because it involves the uterus of a deceased donor. The first procedure of this kind happened in Ohio last year.
Believe it or not, Jennifer was first inspired to enter the clinical trial after reading about it in a private Facebook group.
"Being in a community that is the uterine factor infertility community, anything new and exciting is always interesting just to know about," Jennifer told CNN.
But her husband was skeptical.
"Jen and I were at home talking about whether or not we wanted to participate in this trial and I'm thinking, 'There's all these risks involved and there's a really good chance that we don't end up with a child out of this,'" he recalled. "I wasn't not interested in the trial, but I wanted to make sure that this was the right decision for us."
But it was something Jennifer said that changed his mind.
"Jen said to me that she didn't want to just participate in this for her and for us as a way to start a family," Drew continued. "She wanted the opportunity to potentially help other women who suffer from infertility by being a part of this exploration of the new science. That was the thing that really sold me."
Nearly two years after they first embarked on their exciting new journey, the couple couldn't be more glad they took a leap of faith.
During that time, Jennifer had to apply for the trial, wait for acceptance, and then wait to be matched with a donor. Then came the delicate, 10-hour surgery to implant the uterus and a six-month wait to be inseminated with Drew's sperm.
Still, the wait has certainly been worth it.
"The second we got the call, Dr. O'Neill wasted no time to tell us we were pregnant," Jennifer told CNN. "It's hard to put into words just how much that moment was one of the best moments of my entire life."
