Healthy Mandy and Fitness Oscar can’t believe their luck: They’re pregnant again – just four and a half months after losing their first baby, Rio.
With the words “In loving memory of our little hero and big brother Rio, who as an angel will always take care of his sibling!”, the couple shared the positive message on Instagram.
Mandy Brobeck and Oskar Ogorkiewicz’s tale of woe has been moving numerous users on social media for more than a year and a half now. Brobeck, who works as an influencer under the name “Healthy Mandy”, suffers from a rare genetic defect. Her firstborn was born in June last year – five weeks early with the diagnosis “IPEX syndrome”.
The rare, hereditary autoimmune disease leads to disorders of several endocrine glands and inflammation of the intestine. The endocrine glands are organs that produce one or more specific hormones. The disease usually ends fatally. Since it only affects the X chromosome, it primarily occurs in males because they only have one X chromosome. Females, on the other hand, still have a healthy X chromosome.
As a result of the diagnosis, a six-month struggle for survival began: while searching for a stem cell donor, the couple spent day and night with their baby in the hospital. But when the time finally came 141 days later, even the stem cell donation could not save Baby Rio’s life. Three days after the procedure, the doctors had to turn off the life-support equipment.
“Rio was a special baby, but we have to tell you that Rio unfortunately lost the fight,” the couple announced online and continued: “Rio will always be there and take care of each of us from up there! We are right next to us him while the devices are about to be turned off. Then Rio will be a little angel,” the couple wrote on Instagram in December.
But it was clear to both of them shortly afterwards: They don’t want to give up their desire to have children – and they don’t want to become pregnant again. In a fertility clinic in Istanbul, the couple was artificially inseminated in February. Of a total of 24 fertilized eggs, only one was fertilized. The Embyro was implanted in Brobeck at the beginning of April – almost two weeks later the good news followed: the pregnancy was successful.
But the road to getting pregnant again wasn’t easy: Since the influencer is a carrier of the very rare “IPEX syndrome”, the ethics committee first had to approve another pregnancy. Using prenatal diagnostics, the egg cells were then examined for the genetic defect before fertilization. As in Germany, the process in Istanbul will continue to be monitored by the ethics committee, but is much faster here.
Even if Brobeck is still very early in the pregnancy, the couple can hardly believe their luck. In addition to congratulations and good news, there are also critical voices on Instagram that debate the ethics of artificial insemination against the background of the possible transmission of a deadly autoimmune disease.
