Although we’re at a point in human history when we have the technology and training available to make pregnancy and birth go as smoothly as it ever has, it can still come as a pretty unpredictable time in people’s lives.
Whether this has to do with the timing of the baby’s arrival or the one-in-a-million occurrences that might have once seemed impossible, there’s always a chance that a pregnancy can end with a little more adventure than expected.
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But as one woman has known for almost her whole life, sometimes the adventure begins even before the pregnancy does. And without some help from a person who has now become very special to her, there would have been no pregnancy at all.
When she was 15-years-old, Chelsea Jovanovich of Billings, Montana was diagnosed with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome.
According to Penn Medicine , this is a rare condition that manifests before birth and often leaves the uterus underdeveloped.
In Jovanovich’s case, this not only explained why she had yet to experience her period by 15 but it also meant that any hope of becoming pregnant seemed pretty remote.
Nonetheless, after marrying her husband Jake in 2018, Jovanovich’s best friend offered to be her surrogate.
As People reported , however, she learned while in the middle of dealing with surrogacy paperwork that this wouldn’t be able to happen because her friend developed fluid in her uterus.
In Jovanovich’s words, “I definitely always knew I wanted to be a mom. That’s all I ever really wanted.”
But this big disappointment almost had her ready to abandon any hope of that dream coming true until she learned about a uterus transplant trial happening at Penn Medicine.
By Christmas Eve of 2019, she would learn that not only did she qualify but that she had a living donor who was a match for her.
Because unbeknownst to her, 42-year-old Cheryl Urban had also heard about this transplant program and became aware that it needed donors in June of 2019.
The day after learning of this, she signed up and eventually underwent a 14-hour surgery months later to donate her uterus to what was then a total stranger.
Although the two wouldn’t meet for a year after the transplant occurred on February 20, 2020, Jovanovich was stunned that anyone was willing to go through that for her.
Even with this crucial donation, however, fertility still proved difficult as Jovanovich wouldn’t become pregnant until October of that year.
And while she described her pregnancy as “magical,” it also had to be cut short due to pre-eclampsia, which led doctors to perform a Caesarean section after 33 weeks.
But while he was born at four pounds, two ounces, Telden Walker Jovanovich made it into the world against all odds.
A month later, both he and his mother would meet Urban for the first time.
As Jovanovich said, “She risked her life to give me this beautiful gift – we did it together. I’m just so very grateful.”
Urban said that she didn’t want to stop holding the baby during the pair’s tearful first meeting.
But as People reported , they had already formed a connection before this meeting through email and phone conversations. During these, they started forming a bond that they both now describe as being “soul sisters.”
As Jovanovich put it, “She is my angel on earth. Without her, I would not have my family.”
h/t: People
