I began having severe shortness of breath in my 8th month of pregnancy I saw my cardiologist (who monitors my mitral valve prolapse) and he assured me that my symptoms were just from being pregnant. My son was born June 5, 1998 and was full-term and healthy. I continued to have shortness of breath, palpitations and extreme fatigue. I was given Xanax and told it was due to the stress of having a colicky newborn. I continued to see doctors for months and was hospitalized twice....a pulmonologist told me that I had mild restrictive lung disease and I was also diagnosed with costochondritis. No other diagnosis was given. I finally went back to the cardiologist who finally did an echocardiogram and it was then that I was diagnosed with PPCM.