Even My Failing Heart is Full of Love

When I gave birth to my son in 2020, I thought the hardest part was behind me. The pregnancy hadn’t been without its challenges, but I carried him to term. He was healthy. Beautiful. Mine.

One month later, I couldn’t catch my breath. I chalked it up to new motherhood, exhaustion, anxiety, maybe a touch of postpartum depression. But my body was screaming louder than I realized.

The diagnosis came like a thunderclap: postpartum cardiomyopathy. My heart was failing. At 38 years old, with a newborn in my arms, I learned that my ejection fraction—the measure of how well my heart pumps blood—was just 5%. For reference, a healthy heart operates at about 60%. Mine was barely working.

Since then, I’ve been living with advanced heart failure. My current EF hovers around 15%. I have an ICD (implantable cardioverter defibrillator) in my chest. I’m on the transplant list, waiting for a new heart, and living every day with the knowledge that my time—my energy, my breath—is precious.

And yet. When people learn my story, they ask the inevitable question. It always comes tenderly, sometimes with hesitation, sometimes with curiosity or disbelief:

“If you could go back in time and not have a baby, would you?”

There is no pause in my answer. No hesitation. No fear. Only an unwavering truth that I would give the rest of my life to have him here. Even knowing what it would cost me. Even carrying the weight of medications, appointments, physical limitations, and the unknown. Even with the fear that I might not see him grow up the way I dreamed. My son is here. He laughs. He runs. He calls me “Mama.” He is the heartbeat that keeps mine going.

The truth is complicated. I miss the body I once had. I miss the illusion of control over my future. I thought I would run and play with my son. My vision of motherhood was so different from how it turned out. Some days I grieve what I’ve lost—my health, my stamina, the ease of movement, the life I imagined. But I do not grieve him.

There’s an ache in my chest that isn’t just from my failing heart. It’s the kind that all mothers carry, in one form or another. The ache of loving something so fully that you would give everything for it. And in my case the ache of knowing I already did.

This is not the postpartum journey I expected. But it’s mine. And it’s full of love. Full of fight. Full of quiet moments on the couch with a little boy who doesn’t know how broken my body is, only that I am his mother.

Would I go back and choose differently?

No. Because my heart can be full. Even if its a little broken.