Twenty-one years ago, two moms pregnant with babies with the same rare heart condition met in the wake of their heartbreaking diagnoses. Both women leaned on faith and championed their unborn babies, who later met, became friends, and supported each other through their unique experience. Today, they are college roommates.
Tate Lewis of Paris, Texas, and Seth Rippentrop of McKinney, Texas, both 21, attend the University of Texas at Dallas. Tate studies business administration and plays for the golf team. Seth studies physics. Seth plans to pursue a Ph.D. in astrophysics research next spring. Tate would like to start a foundation to help other young people with congenital heart defects find work.
Tate and Seth were diagnosed with the congenital heart defect hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) as unborn babies, a condition affecting blood flow since the left side of the heart does not form correctly. Today, as successful college students who have survived numerous major surgeries, Tate and Seth concede to a higher power.
“I think God had His hand on this for us. We’re blessed,” Tate told The Epoch Times. “I think there’s a reason behind this, and it’s to help others see that this can happen. ... they can see this and they’re like, ‘They’ve made it this far. This is possible.’ It gives them hope, and then hope goes a very long way.”
‘We Were Told That We Could Abort the Pregnancy’
Tate—the “heart” of his family—is the youngest of four siblings and the only sibling with a heart defect. His HLHS story began when his mom, elementary teacher Cheri Lewis, had her six-month pregnancy scan. Her husband is a 23-year survivor of brain cancer, and another major diagnosis in the family was “devastating.”“We were told that we could abort the pregnancy, but I was six months pregnant already,” Mrs. Lewis told The Epoch Times. “It was really never an option for us, because we felt that God had given us this child, and we were going to put it basically in His hands, and whatever the outcome would be, would be. We felt like we had to at least give our child a chance in life.”
The Lewises were offered “comfort care” if they chose to deliver their son, with predictions that he could live for up to 10 days without surgery. They opted instead for a series of three major open-heart surgeries to save his life: a Norwood procedure at five days to make the baby “compatible with life,” a Glenn procedure at six months, and a Fontan procedure at three years. They were given a 40 percent chance of Tate surviving his first surgery.
“I always say that I have two miracles, two miracle men in my family. Because Duane (Tate’s father) wasn’t expected to live and he did. He survived brain cancer. I honestly think in some ways that helped prepare us to be strong for Tate,” Mrs. Lewis said.
Meanwhile, Seth’s HLHS story began at his mother’s 20-week scan. Home designer Kimberly Rippentrop was told there was a “high likelihood” her baby would die in utero.
‘Praying and Trusting’
Seth was diagnosed with HLHS at birth, and his parents were offered the same triple open-heart surgery route as Tate. But by the time he was 4 weeks old, Seth’s heart had declined so rapidly that he was placed on the list for a heart transplant.“At this point, the right side of his heart was not capable of functioning enough to support his body,” Seth’s mom said. “But a week later, he started improving, and two weeks after that, we ended up getting to bring him home, which is something we never expected.
“At 5 months old we had a test done. They came out and said, ‘I don’t know what you’ve been doing, but he is exactly where we need to move on to the Glenn procedure.’ I told them, ‘All I’ve been doing is praying and trusting God,’ and that was exactly what we needed.”
At 2-and-a-half years old, Seth was “doing awesome.” He had the last of the three surgeries, the Fontan procedure, and was out of hospital in seven days. He stayed on the transplant list until the age of 8 when his heart health had improved so much that he was downgraded.
But Tate’s road was bumpier. At the age of 4, he had a stroke, leaving his left vocal cord paralyzed. At 5, he had complications from a prior surgery and needed to have a pacemaker installed. At 6, he fell on the playground at recess and damaged a chest tube from surgery, sending him back to the operating room once again.
The Power of Friendship
Yet, Tate and Seth had a unique factor in their health journey: each other. Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Rippentrop had first met in the waiting room of their doctor’s surgery in Dallas while pregnant. It was a chance meeting that would herald a life-long friendship.Mrs. Lewis said: “We introduced ourselves to Kimberly and John. ... We went in and came out, and I was crying. [Kimberly] told me that she looked over at her husband and said, ‘Oh, I hope that’s not us,’ and 20 minutes later, they were given the exact same diagnosis. We had no idea. We never saw them again until the boys were actually in the cardiac ICU unit in August of 2002, when they were born.”
The new moms met again and remembered one another. Tate and Seth spent weeks together in the hospital, going through two of their milestone surgeries at the same time. “We’ve got pictures of them playing together in the playroom at the hospital,” Mrs. Lewis said.
The moms were able to support one another through the challenges of raising babies with heart defects.
“Feeding [Seth] was always a challenge,” Mrs. Rippentrop said, “getting him to gain weight was always a challenge, giving medicines was a challenge. Especially when he was little, they sent me home and said, ‘Crying is really hard on his heart, so don’t let him cry.’ Well, you take a brand-new baby home, and you get told, ‘Don’t let him cry!’ How do you do that? But for me, it was easy; I had one child and one job ... so it just became my life.”
Tate’s older siblings were sporty, and as a boy, Tate had to learn his limitations. His grandparents introduced him to golf, and there he found his pace. Seth was never interested in sports and struggled to keep up with his school friends during physical activities. His mom helped him “find what he can do, and just do that,” and in academics, Seth began to soar.
“Their sickness is on the inside, and so, as a parent, it’s also been really hard at times,” Mrs. Lewis said. “People forget that they are sick because they look like everyone else.”
As kids, Tate and Seth attended Camp Moss together for over a decade, a camp for kids with cardiac conditions to foster confidence and community. The experience cemented their friendship.
“We’ve had some pretty cool moments, I think, at Camp Moss,” Tate said. “Talking circles ... we stretched and danced together. I think it’s those times that make it such a life-changing and impactful moment in our lives.”
Glory to God
Tate last had surgery on his 18th birthday. Seth never needed a heart transplant. And their mothers are happy to see their sons thriving at college together, with a bright future ahead they never felt sure they would see.“I just feel like, truly, they’re the poster kids for HLHS,” Mrs. Lewis said. “You have to realize that we were told these boys would probably not be able to go to college, that they would have issues in school. And here they are, both juniors in college, so it’s just been a beautiful thing to see. We just feel so blessed and grateful.”
Tate and Seth are sharing their incredible story to help others with HLHS and their parents to navigate their experience, knowing it’s “hard to not get stuck on, ‘When’s the next doctor’s appointment, or when’s the next big surgery?’” and focus on setting goals and self-belief.
Tate has inspired his older siblings so much that his eldest brother, Luke, is now a physician. His sister, Lily, is a second-year physician’s assistant student, and his youngest brother, Parker, is an engineer and “Tate’s best friend.”
Seth was “not supposed to survive birth,” his mom said, but now he’s a “6-foot-3 and an astrophysics major who’s on the dean’s list every year.”
To this day, both the Lewises and the Rippentrops take one day at a time, one prayer at a time.
“I just really think that the boys have been amazing examples of God’s grace and perseverance,” Mrs. Rippentrop said. “Doctors don’t know everything. God has another plan, and, you know, God had this plan that was remarkably different than what we expected.
“Life is a gift, every breath God gives us is a gift. Whether you’re born with a heart defect, or struggle at 35 with a sudden malady that you weren’t expecting, every breath you have is a gift. Try not to focus on the negatives, try to focus on the positives. ... I’ve had to, through raising Seth, find ways to focus on those things and focus on what we can do.”
Tate said: “I think we’ve given a lot of glory to God. I think we just don’t let anything bring us down as far as what we have, or what we’re going through, but always knew that we have a purpose in life just like everyone else.”
Seth said, “We’ve already made it so much further than anyone thought. I mean, we’ve already defied so many odds at this point, how many more will we defy?”
