The birth of Javan Pourvakil occurred without incident at 9:58 a.m. Thursday at Good Samaritan Hospital. Getting to that happy moment, however, may have turned a new page in U.S. medical history.

        That's because the 9-pound, 8-ounce boy was born 15 years after his mother, Betsy Pourvakil was treated for cervical cancer — a treatment that involved radiation therapy and a hysterectomy. Such treatment usually makes it impossible for a woman to have children.

        Javan's birth was the result of a rare type of surgery that protected Mrs. Pourvakil's ovaries from radiation damage, plus advances in infertility treatment, and the goodwill of a sister, Jeannie Meade, who agreed to serve as surrogate mother.

        It was the first birth of its kind in the United States, said Dr. Nader Husseinzadeh, the director of gynecology/oncology at University Hospital who performed the ovary surgery.

        “I cannot find documentation of any other births in the United States following this procedure, although there was one in France,” Dr. Husseinzadeh said.

        Mrs. Pourvakil was 23 when she was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1987. The disease is diagnosed about 13,000 times a year nationwide, including 600 a year in Ohio, 330 in Kentucky and 300 in Indiana, according to the American Cancer Society.

        Caught early, more than 90 percent of women survive cervical cancer. Very few go on to have babies — especially among those who need both radiation and surgical treatment.

        The first key step in this case was to literally move Mrs. Pourvakil's ovaries out of her pelvis before she received cancer treatment. In a procedure called ovarian transposition, Dr. Husseinzadeh disconnected the ovaries and the blood vessels that feed them from the uterus. Then he stitched them into connecting tissues in the upper abdomen next to one of her kidneys and just below her liver.

        The relocation allowed the ovaries to survive radiation treatments that otherwise would have destroyed the immature eggs inside.

        Flash forward to the year 2000, when Dr. Husseinzadeh informed Betsy and Hamid Pourvakil that it was possible to have a baby through in vitro fertilization despite the previous cancer treatment.

        “Back then, no one would have thought they could do something like this,” said Dr. Michael Thomas, the fertility expert who performed the next key step.

        Normally, fertility experts collect eggs by using tools to reach back through the birth canal. This time, Dr. Thomas and a team of ultrasound experts at Christ Hospital used a needle that had to be pierced almost two inches deep into her side.

        It took two tries, one in July 2000, and a second attempt in June 2001, to harvest an egg in good enough shape to fertilize and implant in the surrogate mother. After that, things progressed normally until Javan was born via Caesarian section Thursday.

        “It's nice to see a happy ending,” Dr. Husseinzadeh said.

        Although willing to release information about their story, the Pourvakil family was not available for interviews Thursday, said Good Samaritan Hospital spokesman Joe Kelley.

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