Fausett, Tysen Rick

[left:9af9e4a1f7]http://www.cherubs-cdh.org/Album/new/fausett2.jpg[/left:9af9e4a1f7]After trying to get pregnant for 3 years it finally happened. We were so excited. I thought after the first trimester you were in the clear. And I¹m sure the rest of you know that¹s not true. I delivered my son by C-Section on May 10th 2000 - Tysen Rick Fausett. He was 9lb. 5oz. 20" long and 3 weeks early. And here is his story.

I was having a great pregnancy and all, no morning sickness, nothing. And then it started. At 20 weeks I started bleeding, went home from work called the doctor and he immediately said come in. I went in and they did an ultrasound, and as soon as that probe hit my stomach I knew what I was having. A Boy! He was not shy in the least bit. The doctor looked me over and told me he thinks it is probably Placenta Previa. He sent me to the hospital to have a more extensive ultrasound done to double check his diagnosis. When I went in for the ultrasound at 18 weeks I was diagnosed with placenta previa but everything looked good with the baby. Everything was where it was supposed to be. At 26 weeks I went in for my regular month check up and my doctor checked my stomach and it measured big. He suspected polyhydramnios, so he sent me to a perinatologist in Salt Lake City (300 miles away from home) so he could check it out. The doctor did an ultrasound and looked at everything to make sure there weren’t any problems. He found that the baby’s heart was shifted to the right side. He looked more closely and then went and had another doctor double check him. He then talked to me about why his heart was shifted. He saw one of his lungs enlarged and he thought it was a mass in his lung. I immediately asked is my baby going to live. The doctor didn’t give me much hope at all. He only gave the baby a 10% chance of survival. He wanted a more trained perinatologist to look at me, so he asked me if I wanted to stay in town until Thursday because that was the only day he was in, (this was a Tuesday) but I didn’t have my husband with me because he had work deadlines he had to meet. So, I told him I would have to make it the next Thursday. That was the longest 10 Days of my life! I cried more than I’ve ever cried before. I pretty much told myself my baby wasn’t going to live. Everyone else was the opposite, telling me everything was going to be OK. Well the next Thursday rolled around. We traveled up to Salt Lake to see the perinatologist. He did an ultrasound and he looked at everything and I do mean everything. I think I laid on that table for an hour. He finally came to a conclusion. He could see bowel in the chest cavity. He then told us he was 99% positive it was a diaphragmatic hernia. All I wanted to know is my baby going to live? He couldn’t tell me one way or another (of course) but he was very optimistic which made me feel better. He had me get dressed and meet him in his office, where he told us all about the condition. He did not sugar coat it, he was very straight up with us. He told us of a chromosome problem, Trisomy 18, that can occur with this condition, but he didn’t seem to think the baby had it. He asked if I wanted to get a amniocentesis done and seems how I didn’t have maternity insurance we couldn’t really afford it, so we decided against it. Not to mention I wasn’t too hot on the idea of a big needle being shoved into my stomach. Needless to say I did a lot of traveling back and forth from home to Salt Lake because the doctor wanted to see me every month until 36 weeks and then he wanted me up there for good until I delivered. I had a lot of ultrasounds, and weekly non-stress tests done.

I wanted to deliver my baby up in Salt Lake so he would be close to Primary Children’s Medical Center where he would undergo everything. I moved up to Salt Lake on the 3rd of May and I argued with the doctor on why I had to be up there so early because nothing was happening. They were checking my cervix once a week to see if I was thinning or dilating. I almost went back home until the next week, but it’s a good thing I didn’t because 4 days later on Monday, May 8th my water broke. At that time I immediately called my husband at 11:00pm and told him. I was shaking uncontrollably and very scared. My husband assured me everything was going to be OK. I told him to go back to sleep and I will call him when I get there and find out what’s going on. He called me on my cell phone on our way to the hospital and said "if your water broke your going to have this baby, so I am heading up". He had to drive 3 and 1/2 hours to get there so he left immediately.

We got to the hospital, they started me on the drip and a antibiotic and I was so scared that no one knew what was going on with my baby. I told them to call Dr. Ball, my perinatologist in. She told me she would call in the morning, that they knew what was going on. In the mean time Rick got there about 2:00 in the morning, and I was very happy to see him. I felt like everything would be OK now. When I finally dilated to a 10 and 100% effaced I started pushing and nothing was happening. I pushed for 4 hours and the baby just wasn’t coming down. The doctor came in and started giving me options. I told him stop right there I don’t need my options, just take this baby. I’ve had enough! 30 hours of labor was about long enough. They got me prepped and ready to go but had to wait a half an hour because of all the medicine that was injected into me. Once the half an hour was up they wheeled me into the surgery room and gave me my spinal block. It was only supposed to numb me from the waist down, but because of all the epidural medicine, it numbed me from head to toe. They laid me back on the metal surgery table and instantly I felt like I couldn’t breath. I started freaking out. Swinging my arm trying to grab something, which at the time it was the doctor. The anesthesiologist told me your breathing just fine. I was hooked up to heart monitors so they could see I was breathing just fine. But they put an oxygen mask on me and pumped oxygen into me to help me breath a little easier. He told me to relax and don’t fight it. The next thing I knew I passed out. The nurses and anesthesiologist kept waking me to see if I was still coherent. I would immediately go back out. The next thing I knew I woke up. My husband was holding my hand and said "you had our baby". I asked if everything was OK. They told me so far so good.

When they wheeled me into my recovery room on the way there they wheeled me into the NICU unit to see my baby. That was the first time I’d seen him. He was so cute. I was happy he was alive and doing good. It was hard not having a normal baby though. Hearing all the other baby¹s cry and knowing mine was not with me. Having to pump rather that be breastfeeding. But I knew he was where he needed to be. He was in good hands.

At 2:59 AM on Wednesday our baby was born, lots of black hair, and then it all began, the next 5 and 1/2 weeks of recuperating and worrying. Our little boy was a fighter right from the get go. They had a hard time intubating him because he was so (as they put it) "wild". But they finally succeeded. I tried to get up that day and go over to see my baby, but I was very weak, so I didn’t get to see my baby that day. My husband brought me back a picture that one of the nurses took of him. I couldn’t put it down, That’s all I had of my baby for the time being. I showed everyone the picture. Proud mama I guess. My uncle and cousin came up and blessed Tysen for us. My mom came back to my room after they blessed him and she told me that Uncle Russ said everything is going to be OK. This great peace of mind came over me. It was a wonderful feeling. I felt if everything was going to be OK.

The next morning my husband came up to the hospital, and helped me get out of bed to go see my baby. When my husband got there he told me that he got a call from Primary Children’s at 10:30 at night and his heart dropped. But all they wanted was to get permission to give Tysen blood if they needed to, to replace what they take out for the blood gases. My husband wheeled me over to the hospital to see our baby. After we scrubbed, we walked into the room, and there laid my son. He looked so lifeless. I began to cry. It was very difficult to see my baby laying there with tubes, wires, and IV’s coming out of every part of his body. I don¹t think that there was much of his body that didn’t have something or another on it. I just stood there holding his hand, and crying. The nurses told me that he was doing really good. We held his hand, letting him know we were there. The nurses told me that he could tell when we were there, he was content. We gave him kisses and then back to my room. I just slept the rest of the day, between visitors.

On Tuesday, May 16th, Tysen went in for surgery. It went very well, things couldn’t have gone better the doctor said. On Friday he opened his eyes and looked at me. I smiled at him and told him that I loved him. I finally got to see my baby’s eyes open. They didn¹t stay open very long, he was still drugged up pretty good. On Monday they decided to try taking him off the jet ventilator and just have him on the regular vent. He did excellent! On Wednesday the doctors said they might try him off the ventilator tomorrow. I wanted to be there when they did this so I went up to the hospital the next day and just as I got there, they were getting the stuff ready to take him off the ventilator. They pulled all the tubes from his mouth, he began to cry. I think I cried just as hard as him. But I had to calm down so that I could keep my baby as calm as I could. After about 45minutes his airway was too swollen and his blood gas was too high so they had to put nasal prongs in his nose (C-PAP). That made me cry the hardest. Not to mention he didn’t like it at all himself. I came back later that night and they moved him to a different room. IMPROVEMENT!! Friday, May 26th, my due date. I got to hold my baby today. I was in complete heaven!! I actually felt as if I had a baby. On Saturday they took him off the C-PAP and put a nosal cannula on him. He was on oxygen only now. We were so excited! We did get a call from the nurse practitioner that day though, saying that a CBC test they gave Tysen came back abnormal so they wanted to run a spinal tap to test for spinal meningitis. I panicked thinking we just had a major set back. But his test came back negative.

The rest of the two weeks we were there was just getting Tysen to gain weight because of the reflux. Tysen finally was moved out of NICU. As soon as we got to the new room, Tysen’s new doctor said let’s watch him today and tomorrow and then you can go home. I was ecstatic!!! I was finally going home after 5 1/2 very long weeks. This was the best news I’d had in a long time. It was also a good Father’s Day present. On June 16th, Tysen was discharged and I was finally going home with my baby.

We are very lucky Tysen is with us today. He is truly our miracle baby. We are very glad, and lucky he is here and normal. He is 6 and 1/2 months old and doing excellent. It’s like nothing was ever wrong with him. He outgrew his reflux and is developing ahead of schedule. I love him with all of my heart and cherish every moment with him, because he could very well not be here with us today.


Written by Tysen’s mom, LaNae Fausett (Utah)
2001