A woman who survived a heart transplant seven years ago died this week just hours after giving birth to her first child.
The Tennessean reported that Megan Moss Johnson died of pregnancy-related complications Tuesday morning, just six hours after delivering a healthy baby girl at a Nashville hospital.
Johnson's husband, Nathan Johnson, is a guitar player who has toured nationally with Christian music artists. Within 48 hours of his wife's death, the Nashville Christian music community had rallied around Nathan and his newborn daughter, raising more than $300,000 through a GoFundMe account Christian artist Josh Wilson set up to help support them.
Wilson has raised the goal four times from its original $40,000 goal.
Wilson, Nathan Johnson’s band mate and friend, wrote that early Tuesday, the Johnsons were thrilled to welcome daughter Eilee Kate. But their time together as a family would be short.
Wilson wrote about Johnson’s death on the GoFundMe page:
"Yesterday, Megan went Home to be with Jesus. At about 2:40 am, she gave birth to the beautiful miracle who is 'Eilee Kate.' The delivery was beautiful and smooth. Nathan and Megan got to be together with Eilee for about 6 hours. Megan held, fed, and burped little Eilee. Nathan says they couldn't sleep because they were too excited. They talked all night and morning.
About 9 or 10am, Meg started having trouble. By 11 .am., she was Home."
When she was 15, Johnson developed myocarditis, a virus that attacks the heart. Her condition continued to deteriorate and she had a heart transplant at 23 in 2010.
Johnson chronicled her transplant story through a blog and a book titled "Megan's Heart." Wilson says Johnson was an advocate for organ donation because of her own experience. In death, she will be able to help dozens of other people.
Johnson and Nathan, a guitar player, married Oct. 29, 2011, in Nashville. Nathan Johnson mostly recently had toured with Wilson, who says the money raised through the GoFundMe account will go toward keeping Nathan Johnson off the road for six months and contributing to Eilee’s college fund.
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