SYRACUSE, Utah — The Gruendells are thankful to be celebrating this holiday season in Syracuse, Utah, with their 4-year-old daughter, Grace, and newborn son Leon.
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“To finally be here after so many years, it’s everything that you dreamed of,” Amanda Gruendell said.
Amanda thought she might never become a mom because she was born without a uterus.
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Everything changed after she learned she was a candidate for a uterus transplant at the Cleveland Clinic.
“It’s been the honor of my lifetime, even just being able to be a part of the research that goes into that,” Amanda said.
She had her transplant in 2020 and had to wait six months to try to conceive through IVF with her husband, John.
She got pregnant on the first try and welcomed Grace in 2021.
“At the time of delivery, we decided to keep the uterus to keep our options open,” Amanda said.
“We wanna keep the patients on the transplant medications as little as possible because of the side effects,” Deb Preibe, clinical manager nurse with the Cleveland Clinic, said.
Priebe has been with the family every step of the way as part of the Cleveland Clinic research team.
“The goal was to do one or two pregnancies, and then they do a hysterectomy so that they’d no longer have to stay on the medications,” Priebe said.
The couple decided to try for another baby when Grace was 18 months old.
“Numerous embryo transfers that failed. We went through a miscarriage, we went through a lot to get this baby,” Amanda said.
They welcomed baby Leon in November. He was born early at 34 weeks, spent less than a week in the NICU, and is thriving.
“It’s been hard and challenging and incredible and just full of miracles,” Amanda said.
Amanda stayed at the hospital for extra monitoring after her transplanted organ was removed.
She said the donor and her family are always in her thoughts.
“I love them with every part of my soul that they chose this for us. I just hope that they know what they did for our family,” she said.
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