IVF Treatment
© The Independent, UKHayley Haynes from London had hormonal treatment and IVF.
A woman born with no reproductive organs who was told she could never have children has given birth to twin girls.

Doctors used hormone therapy to grow a womb, ovaries, and fallopian tubes inside Hayley Haynes, who is from North London.

Ms Haynes, who is now 28, discovered her condition at age 19 after consulting doctors when she did not get any periods despite going through other signs of puberty.

Doctors told her she had been born with XY chromosomes, which made her genetically male.

Mrs Haynes told the Daily Mirror newspaper: "When they told me I had no womb I was so confused I felt sick. My biggest fear was never having children.

"Suddenly a huge piece of my life was missing. I felt like half a woman and was embarrassed. How I was going to tell a guy I was genetically male when I started dating?"

Scans of her body in 2007 revealed that she had a womb measuring millimetres in size inside her, which doctors treated with hormones to enlarge.

After years of treatment she began IVF, which she had to pay for privately at a clinic in Cyprus after the NHS refused to fund her course. The treatment cost £10,500.

Mrs Haynes explained to the newspaper: "I was so nervous. We only had one shot and couldn't afford to go through it all again. I desperately wanted to be a mother and knew if there were no viable eggs or the implantation wasn't successful I'd be distraught.

"Of the 13 eggs harvested only two were viable. After they were implanted I spent the rest of our 10 days resting."

Ultimately both eggs took and she was told she was due to give birth to non-identical twins. She named the two girls Darcey and Avery.

Ms Haynes said she and her husband Sam had "empty wallets" and were "emotionally exhausted" but that they would "do it again in a heartbeat".

Dr Geetha Venkat, of Harley Street Fertility Clinic, London, described the case as "amazing".

She explained: "Normally in nature the female hormone oestrogen will help grow the womb. She's lacking in the hormone, so they gave it to her with the HRT. She's lucky she was born with the womb remnants."

The news comes as the regulator consider whether to allow "three-parent" IVF in Britain after a series of medical breakthroughs.