The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Nurse donates uterus to help stranger be a mom
As a neonatal intensive care nurse, Heather Bankos has seen up close the heartbreak that comes when babies are born fighting for life, when they don’t make it and — perhaps worst of all — when complications from birth mean women who have lost children will never again be able to conceive.
Bankos, a 31-year-old mother of three, has spent nearly a decade giving her medical attention and comfort to families on their most joyous and difficult days, but she wanted to do more. So she gave her uterus. In May, Bankos, who lives in Macungie, near Allentown, Pa., donated her uterus to a stranger through a uterus transplant clinical trial at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas.
Uterus transplant is an experimental procedure that enables a woman who does not have a functioning uterus to become pregnant and give birth. Baylor researchers estimate that absolute uterine factor infertility, meaning the uterus is nonfunctioning or nonexistent, affects from 500,000 to 3 million U.S. women of childbearing age.
“It’s more than donating an organ. It’s donating an entire experience of being pregnant and giving birth,” said Liza Johannesson, a gynecologic surgeon and medical director of uterus transplant at Baylor.
Bankos had been considering becoming a surrogate — in which she would become pregnant and give birth to a child for another person — when she read about Baylor’s program and knew she wanted to participate.
She made her first trip to Dallas last fall for a slew of medical tests to see whether she was a good candidate.
Potential donors meet with a gynecologist, a transplant surgeon and a psychologist to go through every physical and mental detail of the process. If doctors decide they’re a good candidate, the women are called when they are matched with a recipient.
Bankos’ husband, Brendon, was supportive. Together they put away a little extra money each month to pay for travel to Dallas and planned for her to be off work for 12 weeks of recovery.
Bankos returned for the surgery in May. She’d been matched with a stranger who needed her.
She was nervous but excited, too. She thought about her three children, now ages 3, 6, and 9, and remembered what it was like to know them before they were born.
“Having that special bond between you and that baby — they’re kicking and no one else knows,” Bankos said, recalling how overwhelming it was to hold each child after hours of difficult labor. “It’s a great feeling, and I wish everyone could have it.”