Mom Recalls Learning Her Baby Needed a Heart Transplant After Doctors’ Repeated Dismissals: ‘It Was an Out-of-Body Experience’

A mother is opening up about the terrifying moment she learned her infant daughter needed a heart transplant — a revelation that came after weeks of doctors brushing off her concerns.

Stephanie Mulhall-Atkinson, 37, and her husband Justin Atkinson, 33, welcomed their daughter Sloane in October 2024. From the start, Stephanie sensed something wasn’t right.

“She was making this odd grunting sound,” she recalled in an interview with The Daily Mail. “We brought it up to several doctors and nurses during our five-day hospital stay after her birth, even to the pediatrician. Everyone told us her lungs sounded clear and she was just a ‘vocal baby.’”

But that explanation never sat well with her.

Roughly six weeks later, Stephanie and Justin noticed a faint bluish tint around Sloane’s mouth and rushed her to the emergency room. That’s when doctors finally took a closer look — and the answers came fast and devastating.

“They asked us if she had always been making that sound. When we said yes, they told us it wasn’t normal at all. It was a sign of distress,” Stephanie said.

Things quickly escalated. After an echocardiogram, doctors informed the couple that Sloane’s heart was barely functioning. She was immediately sedated, intubated, and moved to the pediatric ICU.

The diagnosis: dilated cardiomyopathy, a serious heart condition caused by a genetic mutation that makes it hard for the heart to pump blood properly. By then, Sloane was already in the late stages of heart failure.

“Those first few days were indescribable,” Stephanie shared. “To hear your baby needs a heart transplant — it was an out-of-body experience. You truly can’t comprehend it.”

Reflecting back, Stephanie said one of the hardest parts has been realizing that Sloane had likely been in distress for weeks.

“We thought those little sounds were cute. We didn’t know she was struggling,” she said. “That guilt is something I’m still learning to live with.”

Today, baby Sloane remains in the hospital on a life-support device, awaiting a donor heart. She’s been there over six months.

In a GoFundMe campaign launched to support the family, Stephanie described the past seven months as “a living nightmare,” but also “a time full of hope and extraordinary kindness.”

“She went from a happy, smiling baby to being intubated in a matter of hours,” Stephanie wrote. “But what got us to the hospital that day was pure mother’s instinct. I just knew something was wrong.”

Now, the family is holding onto faith that a transplant will come — and that Sloane’s story will have a happy ending.

“Hope is the only way through this,” Stephanie said. “I know she’s going to be okay. Her life will be long, beautiful, and filled with purpose. This will just be the beginning of her story — not the end.”

As of Saturday, July 26, the GoFundMe has raised more than $25,000 toward its $36,500 goal.