She gave a baby part of her liver. Their lives changed forever

Research & Discovery

She gave a baby part of her liver. Their lives changed forever

She didn’t set out to become a donor.

“I have a very good friend,” Hannah Scheenstra explained. “She had a son in 2018 who was born with a hereditary liver disease.” At 2, her son Daniel was placed on a transplant list.

“I’m so close to them, and I care so much about all of them,” Scheenstra said. She asked to be evaluated as a donor.

Ultimately, she wasn’t chosen for Daniel’s successful transplant – his mom was – but the experience stayed with her.

Portrait of Hannah Scheenstra and Dr. Juan Francisco Guerra

Guerra and Scheenstra, once doctor and patient, are now colleagues at �鶹�ƽ�� Charles O. Strickler Transplant Center. (Contributed photo)

That’s when Scheenstra learned about non-directed donations, in which a person donates one of their organs to someone they don’t know. “And I thought, ‘Well, that would be wonderful,’” she recalled. She added her name to the list of potential donors.

At the time, she was working in Washington, D.C., in politics and consulting. A connection at the University of Virginia would years later send her south on U.S. 29 to UVA Health's Charles O. Strickler Transplant Center, where she would become a transplant nurse.

Baby Clara

When she was born in early 2021, Clara Surprenant experienced jaundice, as many babies do. “When she was about 3 weeks old, I was like, ‘You know what? I’ve got to make sure she’s getting more sunlight because it doesn’t seem like it’s letting up,’” said her mother, Marigrace Surprenant.

Three weeks later, it was clear to Marigrace and her husband Josh they needed help. They rushed from doctor to hospital to get the news no parent wants to hear: Clara needed a liver transplant. By late July, at nearly 6 months old, her liver had failed.

Clara was hospitalized with no donor lined up. Then Scheenstra stepped forward.

On July 28, 2021, the 26-year-old underwent a six-hour surgery at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, where doctors removed 22% of her liver and transplanted it into Clara.

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“Everything went perfectly,” Guerra said. “Hannah went home, I think, post-op day four, something like that, with no complications. Her liver grew back to 90% of its original size. That’s a unique ability of the liver, that the liver regenerates. Clara, the recipient, also did very well.”

‘You literally saved our family’

Scheenstra and the Surprenants began exchanging letters and decided to meet in person at Georgetown in early December.

“It was really emotional. As soon as I walked into the room, I started to cry,” Scheenstra remembered.

“There were tears from me and Josh … from Hannah and even from the doctors,” Surprenant added. Clara, then 10 months old, was also there.

“She really told us that she felt God simply called her to this and that she wanted to answer,” Surprenant said. “I know those are just words, but, ‘You literally saved our family.’ We got to see Clara grow. Take steps. Talk. Be the spicy girl she is. And that’s because of Hannah’s choice for Clara.”

Two portraits of Hannah Scheenstra with Clara Surprenant

Scheenstra and Clara Surprenant are scar buddies. They have matching incisions on their abdomens. “She sees her scar and she’s really excited that somebody has a scar like she does,” Marigrace Surprenant said of her daughter. (Contributed photos)

“It was scary. It was hard,” Scheenstra said. “But it was 100% worth it.”

‘Truly amazing’

The impact of her donor experience did not stop there. The nursing care Clara and her friend’s 2-year-old son, Daniel, received impressed Scheenstra so much that the former political science major decided to enroll in nursing school.

“I thought, ‘I want to be a nurse, and I want to help patients and families go through this, because I’ve done it,” she said. “I also want to help walk alongside living donors because I can empathize with what they’re experiencing.”

Scheenstra graduated last year from Chamberlain University, the nation’s largest nursing school, and began looking for a job. She called on her transplant surgeon, Guerra, for guidance. Not only was he hiring, he’d moved to UVA Health.

Today, they work together at �鶹�ƽ�� Charles O. Strickler Transplant Center.

“I went from the walls of Capitol Hill to the walls in the hospital,” Scheenstra said.

Guerra, who has about 1,600 operations under his belt in his 12 years as a surgeon, said he’s never seen anything like it. Scheenstra has gone from a donor to a transplant nurse. “It’s truly amazing,” he said.