Jessica Alves has revealed she's travelled to Brazil in the hope that she can become the first transgender woman in history to have a womb transplant.
The TV personality is convinced the surgery will mean she will ovulate and have a baby through intercourse, although this has been disputed by doctors because her new uterus would not be connected to her fallopian tubes.
It is possible that Jessica could fall pregnant through IVF if she decided to go through with the £30,000 transplant.
Currently there has never officially been a successful womb transplant performed on a transgender woman, but Jessica claimed that several women have privately undergone the operation in Brazil.
Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, Jessica confirmed she is now booked in to undergo the transplant, but must still undergo various tests and exams.
The star added that while her doctor, who wishes to remain anonymous, is satisfied she can have the surgery, she will not go through with it if they decide it's not safe.
Jessica also stated that she was hoping to fall pregnant naturally following a womb transplant, but MailOnline has since learned that this is not possible.
She said: 'I was having a lot of exams in Turkey to see if I could have the surgery, I could have had it in Turkey, but I changed my mind, I thought I might as well just come to Brazil where my family are.
'There are some very good doctors here that could hopefully do it. The surgery is do-able, the same way that surgery is done on a biological woman. To a transgender woman is is exactly the same thing.
'To get pregnant I need to have IVF treatment after the surgery. To be honest I don't know the success rate, because there's aren't many reports about it, people have done it but they've done it very quietly.
'Maybe I'm the first person in the world to do it, but I believe there are some who have had the surgery done but they just don't talk about it.
'To be honest I don't know the success rate because there aren't many reports about it, people who have done it have done it very quietly, in other words maybe I'm the first one in the world doing it. '
Jessica added that she believes several women in Brazil have had the procedure, but they 'don't talk about it.'
She continued; 'It's something I want to get done, I'm not afraid of having the surgery, I've had so many surgeries throughout the years, this is just another one to me, next week I'm seeing more doctors having more exams and then the organ comes from a donor.
'I'll have more consultations and exams but everything's fine and healthy, so I can have the surgery done.'
Jessica said doctors are happy for her to have the risky surgery, because of the high success rate in biological women who have had the same procedure.
She continued: 'They're really positive they really are but there's not much report about transgender woman getting pregnant after surgery. Biological women have the surgery and the success rate is good.
'I'm still going to give it a go, the doctors are really positive I can do it. After the surgery I need a lot of follow-up, and doctors can investigate and see how it's going and everything they can do to get me pregnant.
'I'm 38 years old, I want to be a mother, I don't want to be alone really.'
Explaining the procedure, Jessica said: 'Once I have the womb in I will start to ovulate and I can get pregnant having sex or having a sperm donor obviously I'd like to get pregnant the natural way, I want to do everything as naturally as possible, but if I try that and it doesn't work I can have a sperm donor, that's an option as well.'
'It is a riskless surgery it really is, a biological woman who doesn't a womb will have the surgery, a transgender woman who has the surgery it's exactly the same, so please don't worry about it. I was going to get it done in Turkey but then I changed my mind because I didn't like the doctors out there.'
'This doctor has done it previously he's done two friends of my family and he's performed on a transgender woman. But I don't have a date for the surgery yet, I need to have more exams, more tests.'
There has only ever been one documented case of a transgender woman having a uterus transplant - but she died from complications just months later.
Transplant operations do not involve connecting the women's uteruses to their fallopian tubes, so they are unable to become pregnant naturally.
It means trans women who undergo the surgery are also unable to conceive naturally, but experts say it is at least theoretically possible to impregnate a trans woman using IVF.
Womb transplants, which cost £50,000 per operation, were developed to allow women to carry a baby if they were born without a womb or have had it removed through illness. Roughly 15,000 women in the UK could benefit.
It has been considered that the procedure could be trialled on those who were born biologically male using the organs of dead donors or women who have since transitioned to become men and had their wombs removed.
In 2019 a clinic in Cleveland became the first to deliver a healthy baby that was carried to term in a womb transplanted from a dead donor.
Prior to this, more than a dozen women had given birth after womb transplants, mainly from living donors.
In 2019 it was reported that experts were investigating whether a womb could be transplanted into a transgender woman who was born male.
Writing in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, the scientists said it would be perfectly possible to put a womb into a male body so that they could carry a baby to full-term. And they say it may be 'legally and ethically impermissible' not to consider performing the procedure.
Several transgender men – those who were born women and then switched – have already given birth in the UK.
But in those circumstances it was merely a case of retaining the female reproductive organs after they transitioned, rather than having to implant female organs into a male body.
Six months after the surgery and the womb has healed, a donated egg would be fertilised with the transgender woman's own sperm and the embryo implanted. The baby would then be delivered by caesarean section.
In 2019 surgeon Christopher Inglefield, founder of the London Transgender Clinic, said he believes transgender women deserve a uterus implant.
He said the procedure is 'essentially identical' to the one performed on women.
Dr Inglefield, who appeared in ITV's Transformation Street, told The Mirror: 'This pioneering birth is extremely important for any trans female who would like to carry her own child.
'Because once the medical community accept this as a treatment for cis-women with uterine infertility, such as congenital absence of a womb, then it would be illegal to deny a trans-female who has completed her transition.'
There are currently no regulations in place to prevent a trans women from receiving IVF if they do receive a transplant.
Dr Inglefield says 'harvesting' the womb from the donor is tricky as surgeons must not damage arteries and veins to the uterus.
Lili Ilse Elvenes was the first transgender woman in history to receive a womb transplant in the final stage of her sex reassignment surgery in 1931.
However her immune system rejected the transplanted uterus, and she died of cardiac arrest three months after the procedure.
It comes after Jessica told MailOnline that she's 'desperate' to lose her virginity and become a mother by whatever means necessary following her sex change surgery.
She said: 'I am desperate to lose my virginity after my sex change surgery and I have been on the hunt for the right guy, but no luck.
'I've been using Tinder in order to chat to those who are supposed to be a match but I haven't been very lucky.'
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