Commack’s Angie Tempio O’Brien has gone from hoping for a heart to expecting a child

By Daniel Dunaief

After consulting with doctors, who have been an important part of a turbulent life since she was 11 years old, Angie Tempio O’Brien was encouraged.

“I went in there expecting to be scared off,” said Angie from her job at Funt Orthodontics in Setauket where she has worked since 2017. “They were very supportive and said I was a great candidate. I walked out of there hopeful and happy.”

Angie faced a litany of serious medical challenges that put her life at risk, including a failing heart that required a transplant and muscular dystrophy, which she treats once a week with physical therapy at St. Charles Rehab in Smithtown. She wasn’t sure it would be safe for her to consider fulfilling her lifelong dream of becoming a mother.

“Infertility could be an issue,” she figured, given everything else she had endured. “My life has been so difficult, in my head, I was expecting it to be difficult getting pregnant” as well.

Angie, 31, and her husband James, 35, felt fortunate that she got pregnant so quickly.

With her pregnancy, Angie has been monitoring her overall health regularly, including a heart she received from a donor six years ago this summer. So far, she has been “passing every milestone with flying colors“ she said. Angie and her doctors, including an OB/Gyn and a maternal-fetal medicine specialist she sees once a month, have become comfortable with her pregnancy.

Angie’s son Cillian James is due on September 23rd, although she anticipates that he will likely come earlier.

Plenty of research

Angie’s support network, which includes her mother Karen and stepfather Eric Burnett, her father Jason Tempio, her sister Danielle and her husband’s family including parents Jim and Marilyn O’Brien, have been prepared to help in whatever way they can. “Everyone who knows me knows that I’ve taken every precaution and done all my research,” she said. “I don’t generally go into things blindly.”

The excitement about her pregnancy has outstripped the anxiety.

Through her travails, waiting for a heart transplant, a Covid pandemic that hit less than a year after she started taking immunosuppressive drugs to protect her heart from her own immune system, and a diagnosis of muscular dystrophy, Angie has maintained a force of will and determination.

“I’ve learned that the only thing holding me back from anything is myself,” she said. “While my life may have looked differently, I had this beautiful, great life. I will be damned if I will let it waste away by not doing everything I want to do.”

At the top of that list was becoming a mother.

“I don’t think I can live my life scared of the negative possibilities that could come,” she said. “Anyone has those negative possibilities.”

James O”Brien, who met his wife in 2016 through Tinder, appreciates her determination and grit.

“She’s a very strong-headed person,” said James O’Brien, who started living together with Angie eight months after they met. If having a child was something she wanted to do, James said he was “on board.”

From one challenge to another

James recognizes the small window of time between when Angie transitioned from the fight for her life with a failing heart to the battle with muscular dystrophy.

After the transplant, Angie could start to do everything she wanted to do physically, like exercising and taking a long walk without worrying about needing a break.

“We had a year of that and then things slowly started to get worse with her mobility and her legs,” he said. “We finally went to the doctors, when we found out she had muscular dystrophy. It’s obviously devastating. She’s such a nice person who has to go through all of this. Of all the people in the world, she’s the last person who deserves this.”

James recognizes, however, that Angie doesn’t fill her day or the room with self pity.

“She’s definitely a fighter,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons I fell in love with her.”

Angie suggested that her challenges haven’t beaten her and that she appreciates the opportunities of each new day, including and especially the ones she and her husband are anticipating when their son makes his appearance.

“For someone who has been through what I’ve been through, it allows me to enjoy this more than I would be able to otherwise,” Angie said.

Angie has a tattoo on her shoulder that is half a face and half a skeleton. The tattoo illustrates going through heart failure and the death she felt was behind her but she was always battling to overcome. She wakes up grateful for each new day.

“People who are in much better health than I am wake up every day miserable,” she said. “I would rather have been through what I’ve been through and wake up happy, joyful and find the little things that are the big things.”

From an ale house to her parent’s house

Angie and James discovered on their first date at Miller’s Ale House that they both liked the same drink, Jameson Irish Whiskey.

They closed the place down that night and have been, as Angie put it, “inseparable” ever since.

The couple got married in June of 2023 and traveled to Thailand for their honeymoon, where her muscular dystrophy limited her but didn’t prevent her from visiting temples, going on long tail boat rides, and visiting an elephant sanctuary.

“We’ve been through so much and through every trial and triumph, he’s been by my side,” said Angie. “To find that type of person anywhere, let alone your husband, it’s a gift from God, for sure.”

James works in his family’s business, O’Brien Construction Management, which his father Jim started.

He suggested that he has managed through his wife’s health challenges by having faith that “everything is going to work out. It’s not easy getting to that point.”

Prior to their meeting, he dealt with his own demons, including a drug addiction that he helped beat a few years before meeting Angie with the help and support of his family and friends.

Angie is planning to give birth at North Shore LIJ, which has a transplant program and considerable medical expertise in this field.

She will start seeing cardiology out of North Shore LIJ in July.

“I know I’m not their typical patient and it’s rare to have a heart transplant recipient delivering,” she explained in an email. “I’m just so beyond grateful to be one of them.”

James didn’t choose to be an organ donor until he met Angie.

“When I was 18, I was a selfish kid,” he said “Being with [Angie] opened my eyes to how much it could affect somebody’s life.”

While Angie is excited about the coming birth of her son, she feels she’s living her life for herself and her donor.

“When I think about the magnitude of me being able to carry a child and find joy in everything, it’s remarkable,” she said. 

Organ donations have positive reverberations that extend well beyond the individual recipient.

“It’s not even just the person that receives the organ,” she said. “My family, my husband, my child that I’m carrying now: it goes so much further than people can fathom.”