Everyone knows it takes just one sperm and one egg to make a
baby, but nature usually provides extra, just to be sure.
In the case of 9-month-old Kenley Schiraldi of Campbell,
Ohio, however, there was no back-up for the biology, requiring instead what
scientists -- and her parents -- are calling a modern-day miracle.
Kenley was born last April, the result of a long-shot infertility
treatment, a case Cleveland Clinic IVF experts say is the first time a single
sperm has been frozen, injected into a single egg -- and resulted in a healthy
pregnancy.
“It was better than hitting the lottery,” said Jennifer
Schiraldi, 33, Kenley’s mom. “This never happens.”
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Indeed, even Nina Desai, director of the IVF laboratory at
the Cleveland Clinic, hasn’t calculated the odds of Kenley’s conception, which
occurred even though her father, Jason, produced no sperm in the regular way,
and her mom had trouble producing eggs.
“It was like a shot in the dark,” said Desai, who has
developed a ground-breaking technique that can find and store tiny amounts of
sperm -- or even just one -- in a drop of fluid inside a straw as thin as a
sewing needle. The sperm can then be frozen and later thawed for use in an
in-vitro fertilization technique known as intracytoplasmic sperm injection, or
ICSI.
The new method follows nearly two decades of efforts to save
the smallest possible amounts of human sperm by storing the cells inside
hamster eggs or on tiny nylon loops for easier retrieval later. It’s expected
to be a boon for men with very low sperm counts, a severe form of the male
factor infertility that can contribute to the 1 in 8 couples in the U.S. who
struggle to conceive.
Jennifer Schiraldi, a hospital dietician, and her husband,
Jason, 35, a cardiac catheterization nurse, came to the Cleveland Clinic in
2009, after trying for two years to get pregnant, with no success. High school
sweethearts who’ve been married nine years, they were young and healthy with no
warning that they’d have trouble having a baby.
“I’d never had any woman problems and you never think it’s
the guy,” recalled Jennifer.
In fact, however, tests showed that the Schiraldis were among
30 percent to 40 percent of infertile couples with problems attributed to the
man.
“They took a sample and we found out immediately: There’s no
sperm,” Jennifer Schiraldi recalls.
The couple could have stopped there, but they decided to pursue
aggressive infertility treatment, including a testicular biopsy, which involves
surgery to remove tiny bits of tissue to test for evidence of sperm.
The procedure was difficult, admits Jason Schiraldi, but he
said he was determined to try everything.
“We always wanted kids and I didn’t want to be the one who
couldn’t do that for her,” he said.
But searching for Jason’s sperm proved even harder than
imagined. As the surgeon sent down samples, Desai’s lab staffers, three in all,
used microscopes to scan the tissue for any sign of viable cells.
A typical male produces 60 million to 100 million lively
sperm in a single ejaculation.
After searching Jason’s tissue for a total of nine hours, the
scientists found -- one.
“We froze that one sperm and we saved the rest of the
specimens,” recalled Desai. “We really had no hope of it doing anything.”
Because any pregnancy with so few sperm would require
in-vitro fertilization, Jennifer Schiraldi had to harvest her eggs. But when
they went to retrieve them, doctors found she made far fewer eggs than normal.
“I got 12 but only eight were good,” she recalled.
IVF experts searched the rest of Jason’s samples, hoping to
fertilize as many of Jennifer’s eggs as possible. When they found only a couple
dead sperm, the one frozen viable sperm was the only option.
“They got the one sperm and implanted the one egg,” Jennifer
Schiraldi said.
Desai admits she wasn’t optimistic.
“People don’t usually get pregnant when they have only one
egg,” she explained, noting that it’s far more common to implant two or three
embryos to make sure pregnancy occurs.
But then came the exciting part. With the help of a careful
ICSI procedure, the egg was successfully fertilized. Three days later, it had
divided into a viable embryo and was implanted in Jennifer’s womb.
Sixteen days after that, she was confirmed pregnant.
“It was very emotional,” said Jason Schiraldi.
Back at the clinic, the staff shared congratulations.
“I was really surprised when I saw she had a positive
pregnancy,” said Desai. "This has been one of the real miracles in our IVF
program."
The pregnancy was normal but taxing, with a fair amount of
nausea and other ordinary complications, Jennifer Schiraldi said. And the baby
was in the breech position, which required a C-section.
But when Kenley Karlin Schiraldi arrived on April 20, her
parents said there was no doubt about what had occurred.
“Miracle is not a large enough word to describe it,” said
Jason Schiraldi. “Of all the fascinating and amazing things we do in the health
care field, it’s amazing that this happened to us.”
Jennifer Schiraldi says she looks at her daughter every day
and marvels that she’s here.
“It’s crazy. Sometimes I’m, like, ‘Did we cheat?’” she said.
“People ask if we’re going to have another child, but we made it this far to
get her. I don’t know if I even want to press my luck.”
Desai and her colleagues plan to use the new sperm storage
technique to help other patients with very low sperm counts. Next week, in
fact, another man with the same problem is scheduled for the treatment.
Jason Schiraldi said other couples should be encouraged by
their experience.
“People think once you’re stuck, you’re stuck,” he said. “But
there are people who can make wonderful things happen.”