Lincoln mom needs new heart months after having twins

A Lincoln family should be celebrating the birth of two new babies, but instead they’re praying for a new heart for their mom, who developed a rare disease while pregnant.

Jamie Leishman had a fairly normal pregnancy, aside from a little concern about high blood pressure.

Now, a few months after her babies were born, her heart is literally running on batteries.

“I was told, not understanding anything, that I may not be here for them,” Leishman said. “That I may leave my husband a single father with three kids under three. I was terrified.”

She was diagnosed with Peripartum Cardiomyopathy after giving birth. It’s a type of heart failure that comes on during or after a pregnancy.

“The disease itself can happen in one in every 1,000 births,” Dr. Adam Burdorf, a cardiologist specializing in advanced heart failure and transplant for Nebraska Medicine said.

The symptoms started a few days after the twins were born, though Leishman thinks the disease started setting in a few days earlier.

“I was excited then I was, I wouldn’t say mad or angry but it was sad because you want to be happy because you have these two new lives and now your wife can’t enjoy it,” Chris Leishman, her husband said.

Jamie has been in and out of the hospital since October.

“I get texts every morning with pictures saying ‘I love you mommy, I miss you mommy,” she said.

Even when she’s home she’s unable to really be a mom because she’s basically bed bound.

“It’s frustrating and devastating,” Leishman said. “It was being in your own home and wanting to go to your crying babies.”

Her life won’t be the same again unless she get’s a new heart and she could be on the transplant list for years.

For now she’s running on batteries, with a device called an LVAD.

“It’s a device that’s implanted next to the heart that pulls blood out and pumps it to the rest of the body kind of augmenting what the heart’s already doing,” Burdorf said.

It’s allowing her to go home and start living a more normal life.

“There’s some light at the end of the tunnel that she can get to be a mommy again,” Chris said.

She’ll reunite with her twins and two-year-old Caleb, who’s only been able to visit his mom three times in the hospital.

“It’s going to be emotional,” she said.

But her journey to fully recovering is only just beginning and she wants to help raise awareness for the rare disease that nearly took her life.

“If your friends are pregnant, if you’re of childbearing age, read up on it, be aware of it, talk to your doctor about it,” she said.

A Lincoln mom started a non-profit raising awareness for peripartum cardiomyopathy called Save the Mommies. She provides resources for awareness, prevention, early detection and support.

Here’s a link to her website: http://savethemommies.com/.

The Leishman family has a fundraiser set up to help assist them with mounting medical bills, click here to contribute.