When Vali Creus (nee Milionis) was first diagnosed with ovarian cancer at 19 years of age, she thought she would never get to experience the joy of motherhood.

“Initially I refused to believe it. The first thing I feared was that I would not be able to become a mother. I love children and it would have been the greatest punishment that could be imposed on me,” she told Neos Kosmos.

But with hope for a solution, coupled with advancements in IVF, Mrs Creus became the first woman in the world to give birth to not one baby, but to twin baby girls, following the transplantation of her ovarian tissue into her abdomen.

With tests showing the cancer to be the equivalent size of a golf ball, the affected ovary was removed, while the other frozen.

This allowed scientists to graft the 36-year-old’s healthy ovary and use it years later to grant Mrs Creus and her husband Dean the chance to have a family of their own.

“Although I was very scared, I didn’t cease to believe in science. I didn’t have reservations about being the one on which it was tested for the first time,” she recalls.

But for quite a while it was a waiting game.

From the day of the transplant, Mrs Creus waited three years before discovering that the process had been a success.

Now the proud mother of 20-month-old twins Alexia and Kaia, every minute of anguish and pain that she felt was worth it, she tells.

“The feeling of motherhood is the most precious thing to me. It also helped to open another road, which gives hope to many other women who a few years ago could not imagine that after such a drastic intervention, that they would become mothers,” she says.

Mrs Creus’ case has given scientists the opportunity to progress even further in the field of IVF.

A group of scientists led by associate professor Kate Stem of the Melbourne IVF Fertility Preservation Service, have been able to successfully help a second woman in becoming pregnant using a similar process.

Since grafting the tissue carries risks of containing residual cancer cells, in an attempt to find a safer method, Professor Stem and her colleagues are conducting research in a process which avoids the need to graft the tissue.

If successful, tiny eggs can be grown from the ovarian tissue outside the body and be implanted afterwards.

Although science is to thank for granting her one wish to become a mother, Mrs Creus can’t help but see the birth of her twin baby girls as a miracle, particularly given that their birth by caesarean informed doctors of the returned cancer cells.

Thankfully, they were able to successfully remove the cancer in one go, with doctors giving her the all clear and an opportunity to truly relax and enjoy motherhood.

Vali Creus will be sharing her experiences at an event organised by the Athena chapter of AHEPA taking place on Sunday 17 May.