‘A baby of medical science’
“At the time, she was absolutely unique. Renal transplants in people with diabetes were incredibly rare.”
— Dr. Hugh Tildesley
When Ilene Blanchard had a kidney transplant at St. Paul’s Hospital in 1987, she had no idea she’d be back just over a year later for a caesarean section. Neither did her doctors.
That’s because her high-risk pregnancy was the first successful delivery of a baby to a post-operative, diabetic kidney transplant patient in B.C.
On paper, it should never have happened. At the time, the new mother told The Province that her baby boy’s birth was nothing short of miraculous.
“He’s a baby of medical science,” the then-31-year-old Nanaimo resident said from her hospital bed almost 25 years ago. “He’s a miracle baby for myself and my husband.”
Now living in Windsor, Ont., with her family, Blanchard, 55, reflected on what led to the landmark birth of her son, David Louis, on Dec. 14, 1988.
Blanchard had been diagnosed with Type 1 insulin-dependent diabetes at age 12. In those days, diabetics had to rely on less accurate urine testing for glucose, and her disease was hard to manage. Over time, she suffered kidney damage. She also endured bouts of depression, which made self-care a challenge.
Despite these problems, Blanchard, a hospital lab technician on Vancouver Island, yearned for a family. But she told her husband, Richard, whom she married in 1987, that her diabetes and high blood pressure made it all but an impossibility.
In the late ’80s her kidneys failed, and her sister, Adeline, volunteered one of her own. The transplant, in October 1987 under the care of nephrologist Dr. David Landsberg, was a success. But just a few months later, Blanchard was back in the office of her physician, Dr. Hugh Tildesley, an endocrinologist specializing in diabetes, with startling news: she was pregnant.
“At the time, she was absolutely unique,” Dr. Tildesley said, adding that in the 1980s, “renal transplants in people with diabetes were incredibly rare.”
Pregnancy was risky for a recent transplant recipient. But Dr. Tildesley, who has since left to run the Western Canadian Insulin Pump Centre in Vancouver, had helped her through rough patches before.
“I was scared and excited at the same time,” Blanchard recalled. “I thought it was a miracle I was able to get pregnant after so many years of trying.”
It wasn’t an easy pregnancy. In need of constant monitoring, she went into the hospital in her second trimester. High blood pressure and a scare over her baby’s lack of movement led to an emergency C-section two months early. But he was born at a healthy six pounds, nine ounces. After fighting off meningitis, he was able to go home with his parents on Christmas Eve and today is a strapping six-foot college student working toward a career in policing.
“I feel they turned my life around,” Blanchard said of her St. Paul’s team. “Especially Dr. Tildesley. He helped my whole person, body and mind and soul.”
For his part, Dr. Tildesley said he’s never forgotten her groundbreaking case.
“It’s really gratifying to hear 25 years later that the kidney is still working well and she obviously has a fantastic relationship with her son,” he said. “It’s almost like a fairy tale.”