A mom of 2 donated her uterus to a stranger to help her get pregnant and now they’re best friends

• Chelsea Jovanovich was 15 when she was told she'd never get pregnant.
• After a failed attempt to conceive via surrogacy at 32, she applied for a uterine transplant.
• Little did she know at the time that her donor, Cheryl Urban, would become her "soul sister."
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Days before Chelsea Jovanovich gave birth to her son in May, she finally met the person who made her pregnancy possible.

A few months ago, Jovanovich and Cheryl Urban wouldn't have recognized each other on the street.

Before they met, Jovanovich only knew of the 42-year-old mom of two from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, as the stranger who endured a 15-hour surgery as part of Penn Medicine's uterine transplant clinical trial to make her dreams of motherhood a reality, she said.

"There was no question in my mind that I was never going to meet her," Jovanovich, 33, said of Urban, who she calls her "angel."

"I wanted to know her and I wanted to be a part of her life because she's a big part of our life," she said. "She gave us our family."

Jovanovich, a registered nurse from Billings, Montana, once thought starting a family would be impossible.

At 15, Jovanovich said, she was diagnosed with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, which Penn Medicine describes as "a rare congenital disorder that occurs during fetal development" and "is characterized by an underdeveloped or nonexistent uterus and vagina." For Jovanovich, having MRKH meant her uterus was underdeveloped and she was unable to get pregnant, she said.

"It was sad," Jovanovich said. "But it didn't get really sad until I was old enough to start having babies and was in relationships where having babies was being brought up. That's when it was really devastating to me."

Jovanovich said she and her husband Jake were heartbroken after a surrogacy attempt fell through in early 2019. That August, Jovanovich said she applied to Penn Medicine's uterine transplant clinical trial.

By Christmas, she and Jake were accepted into the trial, and they prepared to move to Philadelphia for the surgery in February 2020. That October, following months of physical therapy and a failed attempt to get pregnant with one of her three viable embryos, it finally happened.

Jovanovich said she felt a connection with the "selfless" person willing to undergo an elective surgery to help her become a mom. What's more, the donor had kids herself - a requirement that Dr. Kathleen O'Neill, who leads Penn Medicine's uterine transplant clinical trial, told Insider was necessary to ensure that the donor had no underlying uterine factor of infertility.

"Her having children really hurt my heart a little, like she's with willing to risk her life to give me this organ, and she has little babies of her own at home," Jovanovich said.

Urban told Insider she signed up for the trial after seeing a TV news segment on the procedure.

"For it to have worked, and let alone have Chelsea involve me, was more than I can ever imagine," she said of the process.

Until they met, the closest the pair had been was on different floors of the same hospital on the day of their surgeries, Urban said. For a year after, they weren't allowed to communicate in adherence to rules set out by the United Network for Organ Sharing. But as soon as their social workers gave them the greenlight, Jovanovich and Urban began emailing.

"I don't know if you want to call it like religion, or, stars aligning, but something brought us together," Urban said. "We called each other soul sisters from the start."

Now a mom to 3-month-old Telden, Jovanovich hopes her story can inspire others with infertility issues: "Maybe other women can see this when they're struggling to even just go on to the next day and know there is a possibility and miracles do happen."