Families formed via uterus transplant celebrate motherhood

Laughter, shrieks, and cries filled Louie-Louie, a restaurant on the edge of Penn’s campus. It’s a symphony of discordant sounds, familiar to parents or anyone who’s been to a playground recently.  

This morning, it’s music.  

A week before Mother’s Day, moms who gave birth to their babies through a remarkable and rare procedure—uterus transplant—gathered together for a special brunch with other moms who donated their uteruses for the procedure, and their respective families. The event welcomed clinicians, administrative staff, social workers, and researchers were also in attendance to celebrate the Penn Medicine uterus transplant program and motherhood.  

“I was the first person to call these moms after they applied,” said Dan Zhao, RN, a research nurse coordinator for the program. “It’s so cool to see them all here together with their new families.” 

“Seeing you here and caring for all of you has been one of the greatest pleasures of my life,” Kate O’Neil, MD, an obstetrician/gynecologist specializing in fertility, and the program’s co-leader, told the attendees. “I’m really appreciative. So, thank you.” 

A new and still-rare fertility option 

Despite over a decade of practice, uterus transplants remain a rare procedure. Worldwide, there have been roughly 100 transplants resulting in around 70 live births. A little over 20 different centers have performed at least one uterus transplant, and only four centers in the United States have active programs—one of those is at Penn led by O’Neill and Nawar Latif, MD, MPH, both assistant professors of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Penn’s chief of Transplant Surgery, Kim Olthoff, MD.  

“I used to say our program is over 100 people, but it’s well over that, so I stopped counting,” said O’Neill, laughing. Since the program began, the team has performed six uterus transplants—all successful—resulting in eight births.  

All of these transplants and births to date at Penn Medicine were part of a clinical trial called UNTIL, which is no longer accepting new participants, but the uterus transplant program remains open. 

“From the beginning, we have had a careful and methodical approach to uterus transplants,” said O’Neill. “It’s vital for us to keep all the participants as safe and healthy as possible.”  

For recipients, there is a built-in recovery process between the various steps to ensure they heal from the transplant itself, from in-vitro fertilization (IVF), and then heal fully from delivery, which are performed via caesarian (C-section), to continue having a second child if they like. 

After the transplant, recipients take immunosuppressant medication, just as other transplant recipients do, to make it less likely their new organ is rejected by their bodies. Most recipients have elected to have a second child after the transplant. After each recipient’s last birth, the uterus is removed, and immunosuppressants, which impact kidney function and leave the body more vulnerable to infections, are no longer needed. The trial requires recipients to stop at two babies. 

‘We are family now’ 

Chelsea Jovanovich, her husband Jake, and her two boys, Telden and Stetson, flew to Philadelphia for the brunch. Telden, who is almost 4, and Stetson, age 2, were born thanks to the trial and thanks to Cheryl Urban, who donated her uterus to Chelsea. Now, the Jovanoviches are back living in Montana. 

“It’s great to be back. It feels like coming home,” said Chelsea. She and Urban had already hung out in person a couple times since Chelsea had been back in the area for this brunch.  

“I was with some people last night who said, ‘It’s so nice you two are such good friends,’” and I was kind of taken aback,” said Urban, whose husband, Brian, and kids Ava and Aiden, came, too. “I was like, ‘She’s not my friend. She’s family.’” 

Jen Gobrecht, who was in attendance with her 5-year-old son Ben and husband Drew, added that “you’re not going to run into other people who have the same experience.”  

Even so, Jen was a bit of a celebrity. As the first Penn uterus transplant recipient, everyone knew her story. She had spoken to several recipients and donors personally about her experience over the years, answering questions about what to expect. And Jen’s journey to motherhood, captured on video by Penn and included on the cover of People magazine, not only put potential participants at ease, but also their families. 

“Things have mostly quieted down,” said Drew Gobrecht. “We’re just raising Ben.” He smiled, pointing to his son who was dressed in a University of Pennsylvania T-shirt. “It was definitely surreal, but we were happy to do it. Penn gave us so much!” 

“I watched your video, Jen,” said uterus transplant recipient Stephanie Collado, whose son Rome was born in December. Collado had had a long road of trying to conceive through IVF, and after countless doctors’ visits, she was told she could only have biological children through surrogacy. The Gobrechts’ story lit the spark of understanding a different option. 

“I was like, ‘Okay, this worked for her, it could work for me.’ And then I would show friends and family, and they’d say, ‘Now I get it!’” 

Although they had previously exchanged letters, Collado met her donor, Cassidy Duckett, for the very first time that morning at brunch. Cassidy, her husband, Sean, and their daughter Ella spent the entire brunch with Stephanie, her husband, Melvin, and their newborn Rome.  

Cassidy and Sean held Rome, little Ella played with him, and each woman came bearing Mother’s Day gifts for the other.  

“It’s like we’re family,” said Cassidy. “I remember reading her letter and crying. And then I showed my parents and they’re writers, and they started crying. It was beautiful.” 

“We are family now,” confirmed Stephanie. 

The most amazing gift 

Just over two weeks earlier, another first-time meeting of a newfound family had taken place.  

On April 18, 2025, Ashley Christman made the two-hour trek to Philadelphia from Lebanon, PA, 15 months after making the same journey for a surgery to have her uterus removed and donated to a woman she didn’t know, a woman who simply wanted to grow her family but couldn’t without the precious organ.  

Now, she was going to meet Justyna Ruiz and her new baby, Adrianna, at the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine at Penn. 

Christman placed gift bags on the table for Ruiz. In one was a onesie that Christman sewed herself for Adrianna. Moments later, Ruiz entered pushing Adrianna in a stroller, Adriana’s little head adorned with a flower headband.  

“I’m already crying,” said Ruiz immediately. Christman had teared up, too, and the two rushed to each other and embraced like sisters. Any onlookers would think they must have known each other their whole lives. 

Ruiz handed her own gifts and flowers to Christman.  

“I have some things for you, too,” said Christman. 

Through tears, Ruiz replied, “you already gave me the most amazing gift you could ever give.” 

The two mothers stayed talking at their first in-person meeting for more than three hours. They spoke about their own journeys to motherhood and this trial.  

Where Christman’s path to donating was quick, Justyna Ruiz and her husband William’s path was long and full of obstacles. They experienced years of infertility and lost pregnancies before successfully delivering their daughter Madison in 2017. But at that delivery, Justyna suffered placenta accreta and long-term damage to her uterus. She almost died. And she thought she would never be able to have another child. 

“It just wasn’t right,” said Justyna. “I loved Madison more than anything, but I just knew that our family was incomplete, and I wanted to give Madison a sibling.” 

Since the meetup, Christman and Justyna said they’ve been texting each other every day, and they have both invited each other, and their respective families, to their homes. Christman is going to Madison’s 8^th birthday party next month and Adrianna’s upcoming baptism this summer. Madison has been invited to the Ruizes’ family’s farm to see the goats. 

Justyna and William are preparing for pregnancy again and want to have one more baby before Ashley’s uterus is eventually removed from Justyna’s body. 

“The only difference is that now I’ll have Ashley by my side,” Justyna said. 

The future of uterus transplants 

The UNTIL trial was and remains fully funded by Penn Medicine, so there was no cost to any participants. Its approach is unique among other uterus transplant programs, in that it included both living and deceased donors, and because participants had a range of medical reasons to seek a uterus transplant; these included Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome (women born with a female anatomy but no uterus), past hysterectomies, and uteruses that could not support pregnancy.  

Some of the trial participants are still pursuing additional children, Latif said, but when that phase is over the team will evaluate all the results and experiences of recipients. The team has already learned how to decrease recovery time for donors. 

“We started this program because some patients with infertility were telling us that the existing pathways to parenthood, adoption, and the use of a gestational carrier, were not sufficient,” O’Neill said. “Our goal is to provide multiple pathways to parenthood and to let patients decide what is best for them.”