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Medway woman on NHS shortlist to be among first in country to receive womb transplant

By: Nicola Jordan njordan@thekmgroup.co.uk

Published: 00:01, 31 January 2016

When Laura Reader met Chris Bartley, she knew the young carpenter was the one she wanted to spend the rest of her life with and start a family.

But five months into their relationship Laura was dealt a devastating blow when told she had been born without a womb and would never be able to carry a child of her own.

Despite the heartbreak, their romance grew and they were engaged in 2009 and married two years later.

Laura Bartley and husband Chris on their wedding day

Laura, 28, from Wigmore, said: “Chris wanted a baby as much as I did. And it would have been easy for him to walk away. But he didn’t and has been enormously supportive.”

Laura, a former Walderslade Girls’ School pupil, was diagnosed when she was 18 after going to her GP because she had not started her periods.

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She said: “It was something no woman would ever want to hear. I have ovaries and my own eggs, but basically bits of my reproductive system are missing.”

The couple had given up all hope of having a baby naturally and as a last resort looked into surrogacy, which costs thousands of pounds, and adoption.

Then out of the blue, in 2013, Laura got a call from her mother-in-law, who had read an article about a team of doctors who had spent 10 years researching the possibility of carrying out the first womb transplant in the UK.

Laura Bartley

Surgeons in Sweden had pioneered the operation and a woman had successfully become pregnant and given birth to a boy.

Laura said: “This was the best news I could ever hear. Ten years after being diagnosed with something I had never heard of, I at last had a glimmer of hope.”

The charity Womb Transplant UK was set up in a bid to raise the £500,000 to carry out the first 10 transplants, which are not funded by the NHS.

Laura is on a shortlist of 104 women who also have the conditions known as Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuester-Hauser syndrome, which affects 1 in 5,000 women.

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She is waiting to hear whether she will be one of those selected to have the surgery.

“I know it sounds a bit daunting. But I have been living with this for 10 years and I am prepared to go through with this if it means we can have our own baby together" - Laura Reader

Laura, who helps out at her husband’s upholstery company run from their home in Durham Road, said: “Straightaway, I knew I wanted to raise money and awareness for this amazing charity.

“I organised a charity event in my back garden with prize draws, a barbecue, cake donations and hired a bouncy castle. Together with my family, friends and neighbours, we raised over £1,100.”

If Laura is picked, the womb will be implanted in a six-hour operation and she will be monitored with drugs for a lengthy period to ensure her body does not reject the organ.

She will not be able to try for a baby with the help of IVF treatment for a year. The baby would have to be delivered by caesarian section.

If they decided they do not want to try for another child she would have to undergo a full hysterectomy.

Laura meets the criteria for the operation in that she is under 38, a healthy weight and with a long-term partner.

She said: “I know it sounds a bit daunting. But I have been living with this for 10 years and I am prepared to go through with this if it means we can have our own baby together.”

Her friends who work at Feathers hairdressers in Rainham are organising a fundraising afternoon tea at the salon in Station Road, between 3pm and 5pm on Saturday, February 20. All are welcome to go along.

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