Tamara Franco, the woman who underwent the first uterus transplant in Spain (at the ClÃnic hospital) has become a mother. The sacrifices this woman has made to achieve her goal are unimaginable. But it was worth it, he says. Jesús was born prematurely on March 10 and has just been discharged from hospital.
This delivery marks the culmination of a highly complex surgical milestone that, according to Francisco Carmona, head of gynecology at the Clinic, places this hospital “in the top ten worldwide”. “There are only a few teams that can perform such complex surgeries, both technically and from a logistical point of view.”
Jesus has inherited the name of his father and paternal grandfather. He was born at the Maternity Hospital prematurely, weighing less than two kilos, through a scheduled caesarean section, but in good health. After a while, he started to feed on breast milk and has been stabilizing and maturing until he was discharged. Yesterday I was 40 weeks and weighed 3,210 kg. There cannot be a more desired son. Tamara and Jesús do not separate from him and look to the future with enthusiasm. Finally they return home, to a town near Murcia. “I imagine all three of us being very happy together”, speculates the mother: “I hope that (Jesus) is good.” When I grow up, I would like him to be a gynecologist and to study transplantation, because he has been a pioneer in this. It would be wonderful if you did.”
The happiness of this moment is by no means free. The pioneering transplant (about 50 similar ones have been done in the world) took place on October 5, 2020, in the midst of a pandemic. An intervention of more than 17 hours between the extraction of the donor’s uterus (Bárbara, Tamara’s older sister) and the implantation. The surgical team had calculated a period of six months to carry out the transfer of embryos, which had previously been extracted from the woman, and promote pregnancy.
But the doctors decided to postpone it and wait for the covid vaccines to arrive, due to the patient’s high risk due to her state of immunosuppression. As soon as Tamara was fully vaccinated, she had her first embryo transfer. It didn’t work.
She became pregnant, but during the eighth week she had a miscarriage. A circumstance that had nothing to do with the transplant, clarifies Dr. Francisco Carmona, head of gynecology at the Clinic. “I had a bad time and, although I tried to overcome it, you always have that fear, but I never gave up on a positive attitude”, recalls the patient.
The third fertilization also failed and the woman underwent further ovarian stimulation. Coinciding with the fourth transfer, Tamara fell ill with covid. It was mild, because she was vaccinated, but the procedure was delayed again and, with that, the level of uncertainty grew several degrees. Finally, she became pregnant. “It is true that we expected a shorter period, but the circumstances have been there. In the end, what is important is that we have the baby with us”, celebrates the gynecologist.
Tamara has always wanted to be a mother. Ever since I was playing with the dolls and naming them, it has been almost an obsession. When at the age of 15 she was diagnosed with Rokitansky syndrome (women with abnormalities in the reproductive system, who often do not have a uterus and vagina) the world fell on her. “For me this has been a trauma. I considered adopting, but it’s not easy either. There are many years of waiting and many requirements, and I wanted to be a biological mother, to feel it in my belly and all that…”.
“This is a story full of emotion that starts from a woman who is pure strength, who should not stop at anything”, surgeon Antonio Alcaraz recalled yesterday. At the first interview with Dr. Carmona, Tamara was dismissed. Her mother had pathologies that prevented her from going through a surgery as complex as the robotic extraction of the uterus. “He was very frustrated, but he came back after a few days”, recalls the doctor, with his sister as a possible donor.
To the great technical complexity of surgery is added the ethical debate. Is it legal to subject a healthy person to a ten-hour operation to donate the uterus to another person? “It needs to be discussed,” admits Carmona. “Those who have cancer undergo very aggressive treatments (it’s clear that their lives are in danger), but infertile women who can’t get pregnant sometimes also risk their lives. It seems that we only give importance to diseases where the patient’s life is at stake, but the quality of life is also very important. If we can provide a solution, our obligation as doctors is to explore it.” Alcaraz, with hundreds of kidney transplants in his history, highlights the emotion and, at the same time, the coldness with which the surgeons have faced this project until its success: “Transplantation always has a magical undertone. It’s the most beautiful surgery because you reconstruct, and in this case it goes a little more there. You have the feeling of having created the circumstances for life to re-emerge.”
