West Roxbury Mother Gets New Baby, New Heart
BOSTON (CBS) - As she rolls on the ground, playing with her baby, Ali Barton realizes it's a scene she wouldn't have dared to imagine a year ago. At the start of 2014, her thoughts were on survival.
"I hope I'm alive coming out of this and I hope he's alive coming out of this. I had no idea if either of us would make it." This year? "Oh my God it puts a big smile on my face. I just can't believe we're both where we are," she said.
Ali was five months pregnant with Ethan when she was rushed to the emergency room.
"I found out pretty much that very night that my heart was in complete failure and that I was going to need a heart transplant."
Doctors told Ali if she didn't end the pregnancy it was likely she and her baby could die.
"We had worked too hard to get pregnant with him and he was such a part of me I couldn't do it," she recalls.
Ethan was born at 31 weeks. He was tiny but healthy and after seven weeks in the NICU, he was ready to go home.
Ali's fight was just starting and it couldn't happen in Massachusetts. She knew if she tried to have a heart transplant near her home in Boston, she could die waiting.
"The recommendation was to move to either Florida or California to get a heart faster because the waiting lists here can be years and years and you have to be on your death bed to get an organ in New England."
The I-Team found patients in New England wait longer for organ transplants than just about anywhere else in the country. That fact forced this new mom and her preemie to move across the country for a chance at life.
She received a heart after less than a month in Tampa, Florida and by October, she was back home in West Roxbury.
This holiday season, she celebrated Chanukah and Christmas with her husband, a healthy baby and a sense of gratitude.
"His name is Ethan Barton and it means a strong gift from God and we just completely believe that to be true," Ali said.
The I-Team has learned that there is a commission that is working to find a more equitable distribution of organs. But that is a controversial task that could take years.
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