Four years ago, 28-year-old Ana Kenney was told that she would either spend the rest of her life on dialysis or have to wait up to 10 years for a kidney transplant.

Stanley Wright is carefully crafting an emotional letter to a grief-stricken family. He yearns to express his boundless gratitude for their ultimate gift: the liver that gave Wright a new lease on life. “I want the family to know that their loved one lives on,” he says.

The University of Alabama at Birmingham and UAB Medicine have established the first uterus transplant program in the Southeast and the fourth such program in the United States.