FORT RILEY, Kan. -- For Army spouse Jenna Bell, looking into the eyes of her newborn daughter, Mary Ann Elizabeth, for the first time Dec. 15, 2011, seemed nothing short of a miracle.
About four years earlier, in the spring 2008, Jenna, wife of Capt. Dan Bell, troop commander, Headquarters and Headquarters Troop, 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, was told she had heart failure, was at risk for sudden cardiac death and would never be able to have children.
"I was 23 (years old), and the only symptoms I had were a couple of episodes of rapid heart rate at rest. I would just be sitting at my computer typing or doing things like that, and my heartbeat would just start to race like I just got through running," Jenna said.
Jenna, who was living in Atlanta at the time while her then boyfriend and now husband, Dan, was stationed at Fort Benning, Ga., decided to have a routine checkup done with her general practitioner.
"He did an (electrocardiogram) and said, 'Oh, well it's a little abnormal, but you're young, you're healthy, you're not overweight. We're sure it's nothing, but go see the cardiologist just in case,'" Jenna said. "So, I did that, and (the cardiologist) took one look at me, and he's like, 'Yeah, your EKGs a little abnormal, but you're young, you're healthy, you're not overweight.'"
Despite the initial consultation, the cardiologist did more testing, which resulted in a much more serious diagnosis -- Jenna had Idiopathic Cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle with no known cause that leads to a weakened and often enlarged heart.
With a cardiomyopathy, Jenna explained, it has what's called an ejection fraction. When a person's heart contracts, it's supposed to push out 55 to 70 percent of its blood volume on average from the ventricles. Her heart pushed out 20 percent, she said. At 10 percent, a person becomes eligible for a heart transplant.
"It's really scary, especially because they give you a couple of prescriptions, but other than that, they say, 'OK, here you go. We'll see you at your next appointment,'" she said. "And, it's kind of like, 'What do you mean I can go walk around?' At that point, I was told not to exercise because they had no idea what would happen. And, I was also told that it wasn't a good idea to get pregnant because they didn't know if my heart would be able to withstand it."
Because of her doctor's recommendation for additional testing, Jenna said, it ultimately saved her life.
"Most people who are in heart failure are exhausted, like with an ejection fraction of 20 (percent), most people don't get out of bed. And, I was working full time, going to graduate school. I felt fine, other than a couple of episodes of rapid heartbeat, I really, truly felt fine," she said. "So, it was one of those things that those doctors saved my life because I had zero symptoms of heart failure, so if my general practitioner said, 'Oh, you're just stressed out,' which would have been a totally logical explanation with (Dan) being deployed, my parents living in New York, going to grad school, working full time, you know that would have been a perfectly OK answer to me, and I would have gone home, and we could have found out the hard way."
With a cardiomyopathy, Jenna said, the ejection fraction is like a roller coaster -- it can dip down, and it can come back up, so cardiologists won't do anything until they have waited at least three months to see if it will come back up on its own. So in the meantime, Jenna said, she had to wear an external defibrillator attached to her at all times.
"That was from May 14, 2008 -- which is my birthday -- until July 23, 2008, when they gave me an ICD, which is an internal cardioverter defibrillator (planted in my chest)," Jenna said. "After that, we got back into the exercising, and I was kind of given the OK, see how it goes."
Jenna went on to marry Dan, complete her graduate degree, work full time as a teacher, run two 5K races and educate others about heart disease as one of nine national "Go Red" spokeswomen chosen by the American Heart Association during the 2009 to 2010 year.
She began eating healthier, changed to a low-sodium diet and began exercising continuously so that one day she could fulfill her biggest desire -- to be a mom.
"Being told the first time I couldn't get pregnant, it sucked. I was 23, and all I really wanted to do was be a mom," Jenna said. "So, when they told me when I was 23, I couldn't get pregnant, it was the only time I cried through this whole thing. When they said heart failure, I never cried. I didn't really see a point. There's not a whole lot you can do about it. But it upset me when they said I couldn't have kids."
Through diet and exercise, Jenna was able to get her ejection fraction back up to 40 percent by January 2010. That is when she decided to approach her cardiologist to ask what the chances were for her to have a baby.
"He said, 'I really think you can do it,' based on the fact that I am asymptomatic -- I never had any symptoms, I felt fine, I exercise," Jenna said. "They did a cardiac stress test, where you get on the treadmill and run, and they watch your heart at the same time. Things like that are good indicators of how your heart handles stress, and mine came out fine."
With the go ahead from the cardiologist, Jenna set up an appointment with a high-risk OB-GYN in Manhattan, Kan.
"So I went to an OB-GYN in Manhattan, Kan., on Jan. 8, 2010, the day Dan deployed (with Division Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion), and it was on my chart that I had a cardiomyopathy, but that was it," Jenna said. "So, she did not think about my history or anything. And she said, 'Do you and your husband want to have a Family?' And, I said, 'Absolutely. It is really important to us. That's why I wanted to see you.' She looked at me like she's telling me it's raining outside and said, 'You only have a 50-50 shot of surviving that.' She knew nothing about me. She didn't know how bad my cardiomyopathy was; she didn't know how I had gotten it; she didn't know that I had no symptoms, and she just looked at me at 25 (years old) and literally told me like it was raining outside that I had a 50-50 shot of surviving it."
Jenna decided to get a second opinion and went to another high-risk OB-GYN, this time at St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City, Mo. And, this time, the OB-GYN gave her the go ahead. So, Jenna found a local high-risk OB-GYN in Junction City to monitor her closely until she was 32 weeks, when, at that time, she became completely under the care of the OB-GYN at St. Luke's.
"I went every two weeks to the OB-GYN in Kansas City," Jenna said. "The big thing is they didn't want me to go into labor here because they wanted me in Kansas City so they could watch me. So at 37 weeks, they did an (Amniocentesis) to check (the baby's) lungs, and she was good."
Jenna was induced on Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2011, at St. Luke's Hospital. At 5 pounds, 7 ounces and 18 inches long, Mary Ann Elizabeth arrived at 7:26 a.m. Dec. 15, 2011 -- a perfectly healthy baby girl.
"It's just unbelievable," Jenna said about having Mary Ann. "We got home and my parents were there, and I looked at my mom and said, 'When am I going to stop worrying about her?' And my mom just looked at me and she goes, 'I'll let you know.' She's pretty perfect. It's just surreal. She's mine, and I get to keep her."
"She was tiny and cute and ours," Dan added. "I'm not a very emotional guy, but I like being a dad. I love playing with her and tickling her, especially when she smiles. It's really cool."
Right now, Jenna said, it is very unlikely she can get pregnant again; her ejection fraction is back down to 33 percent.
"Right now, no, I can't get pregnant again. My heart's not strong enough to do it, but I'll get there," she said. "I think my doctors are kind of surprised. I think a lot of people give up … I have a long road ahead, and I plan on seeing everything. We can just take it as it comes. Each deployment, we take it as it comes; my health, we take it as it comes. We just keep trucking.
"I have to look at it now that my second most important job is taking care of my daughter's mother. (Mary Ann will) always be the most important."
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