A Wisconsin woman had a dramatic childbirth after discovering she needed to have emergency heart surgery at 39 weeks pregnant.
Julie Janzen, 37, from Taylor - 45 miles southeast of Eau Claire - was nearing the end of her pregnancy when she attended an event with her husband, Kyle, 32, in May 2021 and began feeling dizzy and having chest pain.
She was rushed to the hospital, where scans revealed she a life-threatening tear to her aorta.
Doctors told her that she needed to undergo two surgeries: one to deliver her baby and another to repair her heart.
Julie is now well on the road to recovery and told DailyMail.com she believes that if she hadn't been expecting, she would have never known about her heart condition and that her newborn son saved her life.
Julie Janzen, 37, from Taylor, Wisconsin, had to undergo an emergency C-section and heart surgery after doctors discovered she had a tear to her aorta. Pictured: Janzen with her husband, Kyle (right), and their son, Logan, shortly after he was born
Janzen was at an event for the local fire station in May 2021 when she started feeling chest pain and her vision got blurry. Pictured: The Janzens with Logan
Julie told DailyMail.com that she and Kyle were excited last year when they found out they were expecting their first child after trying for four-and-a-half years to conceive.
Her pregnancy had gone smoothly with no morning sickness or complications.
'It was an excellent pregnancy,' she said. 'If every pregnancy was like this, I would have so many of them.'
On May 5, 2021, Julie went to work - doing invoice and payroll for a trucking office - and then went to the local fire station for a fire department fundraiser with her husband.
It was while attending the event that Julie's condition suddenly changed.
'I took one bite of a brat and then I couldn't catch my breath,' she said.
'My husband went to get me a bottle of water. Everything went fuzzy. My eyesight went fuzzy, my chest was in pain.'
Julie and Kyle didn't think she was in labor, but they asked an EMT at the fundraiser to check her vitals.
Her vital signs were stable, but her pupils were dilated, so the EMT recommended she be taken to a hospital.
'They told my husband - because my husband drove me - don't drive 100 miles an hour but don't dawdle either,' Julie said.
She was taken to Mayo Clinic Health System in Eau Claire, where doctors discovered she had an aortic dissection. Pictured: Janzen with her husband, Kyle (left), shortly after their son, Logan, was born
Janzen was told she needed two emergency surgeries: one to repair her aorta and another to deliver her baby. She underwent an emergency C-section and gave birth to a healthy baby boy named Logan (left and right)
The couple drove one hour north to Mayo Clinic Health System in Eau Claire, where they were met by Dr Carla Williams, the OB-GYN on call that evening.
Williams said that she determined Julie wasn't in labor, but saw that her oxygen levels would drop when she took a few steps.
A CT scan quickly ruled out a blood clot in the lungs so an echocardiogram was ordered.
'The echocardiogram was ordered because fetal heart tracing indicated that the baby was not doing well and wasn't tolerating whatever was going on,' Williams said.
'The baby's vital signs, specifically the fetal heart rate pattern, were a significant indicator that mom's status was not stable, even though her own vital signs looked okay while she was at rest.'
The echocardiogram revealed Julie had an aortic dissection, a life-threatening condition in which a tear occurs in the inner layer of the aorta, the main artery that pumps the heart with blood.
Blood flows through the tear, which caused the inner and middle layers of the aorta to split. or
