AFTER PREVIOUSLY giving birth to her two sons, Kohen and Hollis, paired with a background in obstetrics, Abby Reed had few concerns about the upcoming delivery of her third son, Whitt. But on June 26, 2023, as her husband, Trevor, dialed 911, the Reed family had no idea how drastically their lives were about to change.
“We have ‘Cousin Pool Day’ every Monday in the summer, so I’d laid by the pool all day,” said Abby. “I had random contractions, but they were nothing, really. We watched the World Series that night, and everything was fine. Around midnight, I was having more contractions, but they weren’t bad, so I fell asleep. At 3:45, a major contraction woke me, and I called my mom to come stay with our boys.”
As the pains across her swollen belly intensified, Abby struggled to find a comfortable position on the family couch while Trevor called for help. Time was not on the Reeds’ side. Just as their baby boy was entering the world, paramedics from Bedford County Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and several firefighters from the Wartrace Fire Department pulled into the driveway of their duplex.
Advanced EMT Frances Fann hopped down from the ambulance and sprinted through the open door while fellow EMS paramedic Clarence Santini retrieved the stretcher. Although Fann has helped seven mothers deliver their babies over the phone, this would be her first in-person delivery.
With no time to suit up, she took one look at the soon-to-be mother, braced one knee on the couch and one foot on the floor, and said, “Hi, I’m Frances. Looks like we’re going to have a baby today.”
After feeling the tightness gathering across Abby’s abdomen, she added, “We’re about to have another contraction. Get ready.”
Two contractions later, Whitt was born at 35 weeks, weighing 5 pounds, 9 ounces.
“After I delivered him, we didn’t have to do any lifesaving measures,” recalled Fann. “We just got the baby out, suctioned him, and I placed him on Abby’s belly. After the cord was cut, Clarence and I loaded Abby onto the stretcher and headed toward Saint Thomas Rutherford Hospital.”
While Frann drove and Trevor rode “shotgun” up front, Santini kept Abby and her newborn comfortable in the back of the ambulance. When their shift ended later that day, Fann and Santini couldn’t stop thinking about the Reeds, so they visited them at the hospital the following day. But the news they received was not what they expected — Whitt was fighting for his life.
“When Trevor told us the baby was sick, I went to my preacher at church, and I said, ‘I can’t give you names, but I need you to pray for this family,’”
said Santini. “Frances and I are both Christians. We think of ourselves as a Christian team, so we pray with almost every patient.”
Due to Whitt being born the morning of her scheduled doctor’s appointment, Abby missed being tested for group B strep. Mothers who test positive require antibiotics during delivery, but since Whitt was delivered at home, the virus was now ravaging Whitt’s frail little body and had settled into his premature lungs.
Abby said, “Doctors put Whitt under a warmer because he struggled to keep his body temperature up. That’s all they told us initially, and then he just got really sick from there.”
Whitt remained in the neonatal intensive care unit at Saint Thomas Rutherford Hospital for 10 days while fluid flooded his lungs. He was diagnosed with double pneumonia and sepsis.
“He had a huge air pocket in his right lung and was on 10 different antibiotics,” recalled Abby. “After being there 10 days, Whitt was given a 30% chance to live, and because they didn’t have an ECMO machine, the, the Angel Team transferred us to Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. He was kept paralyzed for 11 days while blood was taken from his body, oxygenated, and put back. While on ECMO, he developed CDH, wherehis liver and intestines were near his lungs, and he underwent emergency surgery to move them back where they should go. Because Whitt’s lungs were sick, we played the Brandon Lake song ‘Gratitude’ that reminds us that we all have a lion inside of our lungs, so we should get up and praise the Lord.”
Miraculously, Whitt responded to the treatment, and the prayers uttered on his behalf from all across Middle Tennessee were answered. He recently celebrated his first birthday.
To this, Frances Fann said, “God has big plans for this baby.” GN
