Help Kash & Kirsten Bring Baby Kellen Home

This Go Fund Me Page has been set up by the family of Kash and Kirsten Gettert. We are doing everything we can to help this young family through this crisis, but it won’t be enough. We are turning to you for help. This is their story.

Kirsten Gettert was 25 weeks pregnant when she suddenly began to suffer from dizziness and deep fatigue. Up to then it had been a normal pregnancy, as normal as pregnancies get. This was her first, so she didn’t really know what to expect. She and her husband, Kash, were worried about the new symptoms, but it was the weekend, and they had a scheduled check up on Monday afternoon, so they thought they should wait and see how she felt Monday morning.

Monday dawned and Kirsten felt worse. They called the doctor’s office to see if they could come in early, just to be sure everything was okay. “We got there at 9,” Kash said. “The doctor came in at 9:15.” She checked the baby’s heart rate first. That was fine. But then she checked Kirsten.

That’s when everything changed, and it changed fast.

Kirsten was dilated to seven, 15 weeks ahead of her due date. And the baby was breech.

They needed to get to the hospital NOW, the doctor told them. They could drive themselves or wait for an ambulance. The doctor recommended they get in the car and go. An ambulance would be too slow. Within minutes, Kash, Kirsten, and a nurse in the back seat, were headed for Faith Regional Hospital in Norfolk.

“I’ve never been so scared in my life,” Kash said. “When we got to the Emergency Room I nosed my truck right up to the door. If I’d a thought it would ‘ve helped I’d ‘ve driven right through it.”

As it was, before Kash could stop completely the nurse jumped out of the back seat and was opening the front door to get to Kirsten. Hospital staff rushed out, one with a wheelchair, and it was chaos. “Or that’s what it seemed like to me,” Kash said. While he parked the truck the medical team got Kirsten inside.

“The doctor was just minutes behind us and when she pulled into that parking lot her tires were screeching like she turned that corner on two wheels. I saw her coming like that and I knew things had gotten real, real fast.” The doctor ran across the parking lot and disappeared inside. When Kash caught up with her she was running down the hallway pushing Kirsten’s wheelchair toward surgery. A team of 15 to 20 people were rushing with them or in the room waiting for them.

“When we got to Faith Regional Hospital it was like everyone stopped what they were doing to focus on us. It was an ‘all hands on deck’ situation for Kirsten and Kellen. I didn’t know where to stand or what to do when I got in there.” Finally, someone let him stand close to Kirsten so they could hold hands. “We were both so scared. I held Kirsten’s hand so tight. We just wanted to go home. We did not want this to happen this way.”

The baby was in a feet first position, they were told, and that’s not good. That’s not good at all. Kellen Duane was delivered by an emergency C-section at 11:08 am on April 29. He weighed 2.6 pounds.

At Kirsten’s request a priest was there to baptize him right away. When Kash first saw his new son, as he held the bottle of holy water for the sacramental ritual, he started to cry for the first time. “He was tiny, oh my god he was so tiny. I lost it. I just started bawling looking at my boy. Seeing the priest making the sign of the cross on his tiny forehead just….it got me.”

All this was just the beginning of their journey. Kellen needed to be life-flighted to Omaha to the Children’s Hospital. Kirsten had to stay in Norfolk at Faith Regional. Kash wanted to be with both of them and he didn’t know what to do. “Go with our boy,” Kirsten told him. “Stay with him.”

With those words in his head Kash stuck close by while they readied Kellen for travel. When it was time for the transport team to take Kellen to Omaha, Kash told them he was getting on that plane with him no matter what.

They didn’t tell him no. They just told him that there was only room for two people beside the stretcher. “And we’re the ones who can keep him alive.”

Kash took a long breath, a last look at his baby boy, so small inside the mobile incubator, and he backed away.

Instead of getting on the plane he raced home to pick up the things they hadn’t thought to bring along to what they thought was routine checkup, and then he raced to Omaha to be with Kellen. By the time he got to see Kellen again he was in an incubator with tubes every which way. “The only part of him they’d let me touch was his feet. That first night I just held his little foot and watched him. He could move his toes.”

Kellen was born 15 weeks early. He needed a ventilator. He had a hole in his intestines and a brain bleed on his left side. The skin of his feet, those feet he’d tried to push first into the world, was so soft you couldn’t rub them, only touch them lightly, for fear of tearing through the skin.

There is more to tell of this family’s story. Every day brings a new developments, expected and unexpected setbacks. As good as the medical teams have been, as helpful as every passing stranger or team member has been, kindness - and even what feels like miracles - isn’t enough in a case like this.

The hospital bills grow daily at a crippling pace. Kash and Kirsten both work in the farming industry for the same small company. They’ve been married for less than eight months. They are young and in love and work for every dollar they’ve ever had. Everyone they know is doing what they can to help, but it won’t be enough. It will be at least three months before Kellen is released from the hospital and what his needs will be then is still unknown.

This is where your story meets theirs. You can make a difference in the life of this new family. Help their little boy by helping them. Even small amounts add up. Please give what you can to help them keep their focus on Kellen’s needs, which will be many for a long time.

Your donation can help them all get their feet on the ground, ready for whatever the future brings.