MALIN STENBERG was only 15 when she was told she had been born without a womb and so would never carry a child of her own.

    But now she has spoken of the magic of motherhood after becoming the world’s first woman to have a baby with a womb transplant.

    Stenberg, 38, said she wanted to tell her story to give hope to others in the same situation.

    “If you wish for a family and you are unable to have one naturally, for whatever reason, it is so sad,” she said.

    “Total happiness comes from having a family and it doesn’t matter if it is through a womb transplant, or adoption or something else. It is magical.”

    Three years ago, Stenberg was given a womb by a family friend, as part of a pioneering transplant program at Gothenburg University, in Sweden, and 20 months ago, she made history by giving birth to a son, Vincent.

    Womb transplants have been attempted before but all had failed, until Vincent was born. As she watched the youngster play with a toy golf set in their home near Gothenburg, Stenberg described her devastation at being told as a teenager that she suffered from MRKH Syndrome, a rare genetic condition that meant she was born without a womb.

    Eventually, she resigned herself to a life without children and threw herself into her career as a broker in the aviation industry.

    Everything changed after she met her fiance Claes Nilsson when she was 30. She told him about her condition early in their relationship and he vowed to find a way for them to have a family.

    The couple looked into adoption and surrogacy before joining the womb transplant project at Gothenburg University.

    After the womb was successfully transplanted, Stenberg had IVF treatment — and became pregnant on her first attempt.

    The couple chose the name Vincent, which is derived from the Latin for “to conquer,” to mark the extraordinary lengths they undertook to have him.

    Stenberg said, “When I held him for the first time, it was just amazing. I felt immediately that he was my baby. It just felt so natural. We truly are a family now.”(SD-Agencies)