Pregnancy after Transplant

[Anon]

Hi, Im wondering can you you get pregnant Post Tranplsant. I had a Transplant late 2003. Im not considering yet, and its not even in the near future but i am just wondering in about 10 years down the line.
Are there more complications than a normal pregnancy?? Is it not reccommended??

Cheers

[preciouslove0902]

Hello,
My doctor has given me the thumbs up to become pregnant. They advise you to wait until you are 2 years post transplant and I will be on Sept. 6th. If you are on Cellcept that is the only medication that I know of right now that will have to be changed. It also is a possibilty that you will have the baby early. But I guess it depends on the person because I have talked to several women that went full term with the pregnancy and had no problems. So I will keep you and whoever else wants to know updated on my situation. My situation is a little different because I have to take estrogen pills because my estrogen was so low. My doc says it is because of the meds. I hope I helped you out a little. You may feel free to ask me anything you wish.

God Bless,
Miriam

[amanda in CA]

Hi, I had a transplant for 10 years before it gave up on me. Two years before that I had a beautiful little boy (now 3.5 years). I knew that my kidney was deteriorating at the time so didn't want to miss the window of opportunity and ended up having IVF because I had years of not getting pregnant naturally (I'm sure that renal failure played a factor in this, but it was not deemed to be the complete cause). In fact at the latter end of the kidney's life seemed like a good time to get pregnant because of the fact that pregnancy does put a risk to the kidney. Since I knew that it only had a limited time left, I knew that I would be risking losing years of health as I would have done had I had my pregnancy when first transplanted. However, I would strongly advise not to wait ten years since transplants do have a 'life span' and 10 years may be pushing the window a bit. Hope it doesn't happen but there's a chance that your kidney will not be functioning in 10 years, since statistically they last 8-10 years for a cadaveric transplant (I do appreciate that yours may have been a live donor but even these do not go on forever. I suggest that you talk about your wishes to your nephrologist, they may be able to suggest the 'best' time to attempt a pregnancy, this seems to usually be when your medications following transplant are at a stable maintenance level. Please e-mail me privately if you wish to. Good luck, Amanda

[JMan]

Short answer

Yes..

Are there risks? Yes.

Can it be done successfully? Yes..

Find a good doc willing to support and monitor and there's no reason why not.. Its not an uncommon question on the board and I wish all the power and luck and joy in the world to women who decide to go through with this with a transplant .

Some of the stories I've read in the past 10 years are most touching and a successes a joy to behold.