PHOENIX -- For many families, the road to welcoming children can be long and include many twists and turns.
That was the case for a Valley mother, who welcomed a baby boy earlier this year after what doctors described as a "one-in-a-million" high-risk pregnancy.
Bendu Kiazolu, 35, gave birth to her son, Benzi, in March at the Abrazo Health Arrowhead campus in Glendale after she underwent an innovative treatment program that included 18-hour-long infusion sessions meant to suppress her immune system.
"If you were to characterize Bendu's clinical situation when she started this pregnancy with us, it was probably already a one-in-a-million pregnancy, if not one-in-five-million," Dr. Ravi Gunatilake, the specialist in maternal and fetal medicine at Abrazo Arrowhead who led Kiazolu's care team, said in a press release.
Gunatilake determined the treatment plan after determining Kiazolu's immune system was attacking her unborn children through the placenta.
This is a rare condition known as Gestational Alloimmune Liver Disease, or GALD.
This condition led to Kiazolu losing five children before the birth of her son, according to the hospital.
When Kiazolu was 19 years old, she was told that she was unable to get pregnant. However, she always wanted a big family and was able to give birth to her first son, Bailey, in 2017, according to Abrazo Arrowhead.
"After I had my son, I kept wanting to have more kids and more kids because he was such a blessing to us," Kiazolu said.
However, her fertility journey soon became a rocky road, as Kiazolu and her husband lost three children to miscarriages.
After getting pregnant once again in 2023, her baby was stillborn at 24 weeks.
"When the nurse told me they couldn't detect a heartbeat, I just cried and cried," Kiazolu said. "I couldn't believe this was happening over and over again."
However, she persevered and became pregnant with a baby girl later that year. This is when she began being treated by Gunatilake.
The girl was ultimately born prematurely at 31 weeks, but soon died. This led Gunatilake to make the diagnosis that Kiazolu had GALD.
The doctor, who also goes by Dr. G, and a team from Abrazo Arrowhead's neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) became determined to help Kiazolu's desire to have more children become a reality.
They discussed the case with experts from around the world, ultimately determining to treat Kiazolu using intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) infusions, along with steroids and hydroxychloroquine, a drug meant to suppress her immune system.
Kiazolu received the treatment during infusion sessions, which took 18 hours to complete.
"When Dr. G told me he could start IVIG on me, it was on a Friday and he suggested I begin the following Monday," Kiazolu said. "I told him I want to start now, today!"
She then drove straight over to the NICU and had her first transfusion.
"I really give tremendous credit to Bendu because these medications and therapies do have significant side effects and she experienced them and fought through them knowing they were helping her baby," Gunatilake said.
Months later, when her baby was at 32 weeks and Kiazolu was in the midst of a transfusion, her water broke and she gave birth to baby Benzi.
"My son came out right there in the NICU, he was ready," Kiazolu said. "He came out only 3 pounds, but he was breathing on his own; he was just a blessing. He came out little, but he came out perfect."
Seeing Kiazolu and her family welcome a child after everything they had gone through is a memory that will stick with Gunatilake.
"Seeing Bendu and her husband absolutely devastated and crying in the NICU during that last pregnancy ... and then finally being able to see her and her husband with their child at this most recent pregnancy, that was the most memorable thing to me," he said.
Kiazolu wants her story to inspire other mothers who may be having struggles with fertility and hopes to see her family grow again in the near future.
"I want to have one more baby, but Dr. G is making me wait a year," Kiazolu said.