Jen’s story: Achieving the dream of motherhood with a uterus transplant

Jen Dingle holds two impressive motherhood “records,” both of which, just a decade earlier, she was told were impossible to achieve.

The records? Jen was the second woman to deliver a baby in the United States following a uterus transplant. Then in 2020, when she had her second baby, she was the first at Baylor University Medical Center—and in the whole of the United States—to deliver two children after a uterus transplant.

Making dreams of parenthood come true

Giving birth to her own biological children had been a dream of Jen’s since she was a young girl. But due to a condition called Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome, a rare congenital disorder that affects the development of female reproductive organs, she’d been told at just 14 years old that would never happen.

Today, however, she is the proud mother of two girls, Jia and Jade, thanks to the Uterus Transplant program at Baylor University Medical Center, part of Baylor Scott & White Health.

“It catches me off guard, even now,” Jen said. “They are, by far, my proudest accomplishments.”

Liza Johannesson, MD, PhD, a gynecological surgeon on the medical staff of Baylor University Medical Center and medical director of the Uterus Transplant program, says giving women multiple children following a uterus transplant is not only possible, it’s one of her team’s goals.

“We might get to a point where we can achieve three or four children for these women, but we want to take it step by step to ensure the health of our patients,” Dr. Johannesson said.

As a precaution, Dr. Johannesson’s team advises women to pause one to two years between pregnancies.  And as transplant recipients must take immunosuppressant drugs, which can reduce the body’s ability to fight off infections and diseases, each woman’s health is closely monitored. When a woman who received a transplant is finished having children, the uterus is removed to allow her to stop taking immunosuppressants.

This was the case for Jen, who had her uterus removed minutes after giving birth to her second baby.

“We knew from the beginning we wanted to try to have as many kids as we could, because the truth from the start was that the transplant was never going to be a permanent fix for me,” Jen said.

Baylor University Medical Center’s Uterus Transplant program is the largest and most successful in the United States, averaging one transplant a month. It was also the first program in the world to offer uterus transplants outside of a clinical trial, achieving so in 2021. Any woman without a uterus, who lost their uterus at a young age or who has a nonfunctioning uterus, is a potential candidate for a uterus transplant.

“I’m very fortunate to be a part of this team that is helping women achieve their dreams of motherhood,” Dr. Johannesson said. “I work with miracles every day.”

To learn more about how the Uterus Transplant program at Baylor University Medical Center is changing lives, click here.