(NewsNation) — A Wisconsin mother and recent heart transplant recipient is preparing to celebrate her first Mother’s Day after nearly dying in pregnancy.
Susan Siegenthaler will be celebrating Mother’s Day from an unusual perspective after she came close to dying in pregnancy.
The 38-year-old mother developed cardiovascular complications while pregnant, a leading cause of death for expectant mothers.
After four miscarriages, Siegenthaler celebrated as her pregnancy advanced.
“I loved every minute of it. I had a really good pregnancy. And it was right around five months, where I’m like, Oh, are my feet supposed to be this puffy?” she said.
By the seventh month, she had a strange cough and was severely short of breath. Siegenthaler went to urgent care, but they sent her home.
But after an EKG, Siegenthaler’s midwife took her to the emergency room.
“There were doctors all around me. And when they told me I was in heart failure, I didn’t know what that meant. I didn’t know if that meant I was dying, or it just didn’t feel real,” Siegenthaler said.
Doctors worked to stabilize her.
“She was on both IV medications as well as a device to support her, you know, blood pressure and perfusion of her body,” said Dr. Maryl Johnson, a heart failure and transplant cardiologist.
Siegenthaler was put on life support before being transferred to University Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin, where a team of doctors managed her diagnosis of cardiomyopathy while monitoring her unborn baby.
“It was very unusual, really for our cardiac cardiothoracic surgical floor or cardiac ICU floor to have a little bassinet sitting outside someone’s room,” Johnson said.
Baby Stevie was born at 34 weeks via cesarean section, healthy despite weighing just 3 pounds.
Without the physical stress of pregnancy, doctors hoped Siegenthaler’s condition would improve. When it didn’t, they decided it was time for a transplant.
“She was a Status-2, which is the second highest status. The other thing that was helpful is that she was relatively small, she wasn’t a huge person,” Johnson said.
While her mother waited for a new heart, Baby Stevie grew strong enough to go home with her dad, Kiel Siegenthaler.
“It is sad. I feel like I missed those. Those first, you know, four to eight weeks. I miss when she was that small because I didn’t get to see her as much when she was first born,”
That sadness soon gave way to relief, as Siegenthaler got a new heart after just 11 days on the transplant list. At last she could breathe deeply. As she started rehab, she basked in gratitude.
”Every time I look at Stevie and my husband, you know, it’s I’ll always be grateful. I never want to forget how grateful I was that first week coming out of the hospital,” Siegenthaler said.
Siegenthaler is making plans for how she’ll thank her donor’s family as she tracks Stevie’s first teeth and prepares to celebrate her first Mother’s Day.
“Honestly, I don’t even need anything. All I wanted to do is be with my husband and be with Stevie, and I’d be perfectly happy. I did ask for a full night’s sleep. But that’s all I really need. Then I’m good,” she said.
