When Melissa Demiranda was seven months pregnant, she went to see a cardiologist at the suggestion of her OB-GYN.
In the days leading up to the appointment, Demiranda, 34, was waking up gasping for air. Shortness of breath is common in the third trimester, and Demiranda’s doctors weren’t overly concerned, according to her husband, Matthew Quinones.
“They just wanted her to get checked out to be on the safe side,” Quinones tells TODAY.com.
After the exam on April 10, Demiranda called her husband to let him know she was being transported to the hospital in an ambulance. The cardiologist had noticed some fluid in her lungs that warranted a further look. Her blood pressure was also high.
“She was like, ‘Don’t worry, I feel normal, I feel fine,’” Quinones says.
Quinones hopped in his car and headed to Overlook Medical Center in Summit, New Jersey, to meet Demiranda. He remembers feeling relieved that Demiranda was going to be monitored.
“I was glad they were sending her to the hospital. We were going to get some answers about why she having problems breathing,” Quinones says.
Shortly after Quinones arrived at the emergency room, he noticed a crowd surrounding an ambulance.
“They pulled someone off a gurney and their arm was just dangling over the side, and my first thought was, ‘That person must be dead,’” Quinones says. He kept scanning for Demiranda. Why hadn't her ambulance arrived?
Moments later, Quinones was led into a small room with a chaplain.
“Honestly my brain was like, ‘They have the wrong person,’” Quinones says. “Then they asked for my wife’s name.”
Quinones starts to cry as he recalls the moment he realized it wasn’t a terrible a mix-up.
“My heart just dropped,” he says.
Quinones was taken into a room where a doctor was performing chest compressions on Demiranda.
“I looked at her and I could see clearly she was gone. There were like 40 people in the room and they all knew it, too,” he says. “That was the hardest moment of my life by far.”
The couple’s newborn daughter, Mia Melissa, miraculously survived and remains in the neonatal intensive care unit at Morristown Memorial Hospital.
Quinones says Mia, who was born 9 weeks early, is expected to be discharged by her due date, June 8.
“I don’t know how I would be able to go on without my little girl,” Quinones says through tears.
Quinones and Demiranda’s family are awaiting autopsy results, which can take up to two months.
“None of it makes sense,” he says. “I still can’t believe she’s gone.”
Dr. Comisha Holloman, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Texas Children’s Hospital, says shortness of breath during pregnancy is typically caused by hormonal and physiologic changes. For example, as the uterus continues to grow, it pushes up against the diaphragm reducing lung capacity.
“I’m concerned about shortness of breath when there’s a sudden onset, and if it’s persistent and worsening,” Holloman, who did not treat Demiranda, tells TODAY.com. Other abnormal symptoms include breathlessness accompanied by chest pain, heart palpitations and coughing up blood.
In these cases, shortness of breath can signal something more serious such as preeclampsia, a high blood pressure disorder that starts after the 20th week of pregnancy. Sudden shortness of breath is also a symptom of pulmonary embolism, which occurs when a blood clot gets stuck in the artery in the lung.
“Pulmonary embolism is rare, but pregnant women are at slightly higher risk for that,” Holloman says.
A rainbow baby
After experiencing two devastating miscarriages, the high school sweethearts conceived Mia with the help of IVF. Demiranda spent all of her free time researching newborn care.
“She knew what kind of diapers she wanted, she knew the best formula and the safest furniture and all the stuff,” Quinones says. “We’d go for regular walks around Target.”
Recently, when Quinones was going through Demiranda’s keepsakes, he found a box filled with notes she had written to their unborn babies.
“She literally documented every single day that she was pregnant and it broke my heart,” he says. “Melissa was going to be the best mom.”
Quinones who has a GoFundMe to help with Mia’s medical expenses, says there is a picture of Melissa next to his daughter's crib. Mia also sleeps on linens that nurses made from her Mom’s clothing.
He sees Melissa in Mia.
“Even when Melissa was freezing, one foot would be hanging out from under the blanket, and Mia is the same way — one foot is always sticking out,” Quinones says.
Quinones will never stop talking about Demiranda, and has found that sharing her story is therapeutic.
“I’ll make sure Mia knows that she was her mother’s whole world,” Quinones says. “Mia meant absolutely everything to Melissa.”