AMAZING GRIT OF MEDICAL WONDER MUM

Staff writer
When Stinne Bergholdt visited her doctor to talk about having another baby, she never in a million years expected the joyful news she received.

Stinne had been through hell to have her first and much-loved child Aviaja.

Never has a mother's love shone through so much as in Stinne's determination that she would have children.

First there was a problem with her left ovaries. As a young woman she lost half her ovaries because of a cyst.

Then it was the cancer. Called Ewing's Sarcoma, it meant she faced having chemotherapy that would destroy her fertility.

Her saviour appeared and he was called Professor Claus Yding Anderson. Professor Anderson was pioneering the new technique of ovarian transplant in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Aviaja's birth was possible because his mother's right ovaries were removed before her cancer treatment and placed in deep freeze storage as 13 different strips. After successful cancer treatment, six of these strips were replaced.

Even then the determined would-be mother needed more help. She and her husband had to go for fertility treatment before she could become pregnant.

It was all successful and Aviaja was born, joyfully, in February 2007. To ensure the health of her baby girl, Stinne breast-fed until the following October.

The Bergholdts were making up for lost time and in January 2008 paid another visit to Professor Anderson to discuss having another baby.

It was then that he dropped the bombshell.

"You're pregnant and it's all natural!"

So it was that later in 2008, Stinne's second baby Lucca was born. Between them Aviaja and Lucca are two out of just nine very special babies who have been born in different countries following successful ovarian transplants.

Stinne, who is now 32 and lives in Odense, Denmark, recalls:  “When I found out I was pregnant for the first time I was of course very happy and excited – but also very afraid and sceptical since I found it very hard to believe that my body was really working again.

Lucca Bergholdt, the miracle baby

“The second time it was quite a surprise to find out I was pregnant since we hadn't been working on it – we thought we needed assistance like the first time. We had an appointment at the fertility outpatient clinic to talk about the possibility of a second baby, but it turned out that I was already pregnant – naturally.

"It was a very nice surprise to find out that my body was now functioning normally and that we were having a baby without having to go through the fertility treatment.

"It was indeed a miracle!”

Stinne could now have more children if she wanted. If she has any problems, there are still seven strips of healthy ovary in deep freeze.

Is she considering it?

“The girls are still so small and need a lot of attention, but maybe in a couple of years we might think about it again," she says.

News report on Stinne's story here