A Surprise Set of Triplets
Rommy Coutelin Johnson, who is in her 40s and has two adult children from a previous marriage, is now a mom of five. When she and her current husband decided to try for a baby via in vitro fertilization, all three embryos took, and Coutelin Johnson navigated a high-risk pregnancy including a subchorionic hematoma–blood pooling between the uterine wall and the membrane surrounding the embryos. Amazingly, she was able to deliver healthy triplets via cesarean section. She is available for interviews in English or Spanish. Contact: Soshea Leibler, 213-215-8000, soshea.leibler@cshs.org
Heart Surgery, Followed by Childbirth The path to her first Mother’s Day for Donet Teimourian was anything but easy. Born in Iran with a congenital heart defect, she underwent her first open-heart surgery at just 18 months, then another at age 11. She grew up, moved to the U.S., married, and began dreaming of motherhood. But the 33-year-old’s heart wasn’t healthy enough to support a pregnancy–until she underwent minimally invasive surgical repair at Cedars-Sinai. She and her husband welcomed a son in September. Contact: Cara Martinez, 310-562-7821, cara.martinez@cshs.org
Test to Predict Kidney Transplant Rejection Works in Children Kidney transplant patient Brenna Kahlen,19, will get to celebrate Mother’s Day with her mom this year, and well into the future, thanks to her doctor’s out-of-the-box thinking. Employing an early-detection test previously only used in adults, her doctor found that Brenna’s body was rejecting her donor organ, and she began infusion treatments to help stave off the rejection. The side effects are difficult, but Brenna is staying the course. Her mom, Yvonne, calls Brenna her hero. “She’s been through so much and I am so proud of her,” Yvonne said. Contact: Soshea Leibler, 213-215-8000, soshea.leibler@cshs.org
