Foundation co-founded by Olympic champ Ashley Tappin hopes to fund 10 open heart surgeries

When Ashley Tappin-Doussan and her husband, Russell Doussan, had twins on September 24, they were elated.

Russell Doussan and Ashley Tappin-Doussan with their children Beau and Hartley Doussan.

They named their son Beau Jacques for his French heritage and because they anticipated he would be a “jock” like his mom, a three-time Olympic gold medal winner in swimming and the former head swimming coach at UNO. They named their daughter Hartley Gray, the Gray for Ashley’s godmother Martha Gray, and the Hartley in honor of New Orleans Saints kicker Garrett Hartley.

“We got pregnant right around the time Hartley kicked the field goal that got us into the Super Bowl,” Ashley says.

The Doussans, who moved across the lake to Covington in 2007, are great Saints fans and have strong ties to the team: Russell met Saints owner/executive vice president Rita Benson LeBlanc through his work as a concert promoter, and she introduced him to Ashley at a celebrity fund-raiser in 2003.

“She’s our cupid,” Ashley says. “Russell and I had our first date at The Bridge Lounge, and we’ve never been apart.”

They were married on the beach in Hawaii in April 2005.

When they picked the name Hartley for their daughter, they had no way of knowing just how appropriate it would be or that she would inspire them to start a foundation to save the lives of babies around the world.

“We called it “Hartley’s Hearts.” It just seems meant to be,” Ashley says.

A few hours after Beau and Hartley were born, the doctors told the new parents that there was a high probabilty Hartley had Down syndrome.

“When you hear those words, you don’t want to accept it,” Russell says. “There’s a moment of fear. It’s not disappointment. It’s just wanting to know what to do.”

Their friends who have a Down syndrome child came and talked to them and helped put them at ease. It would be fine, they said. They would take Hartley home and love her and give her everything she needed.

SCOTT THRELKELD / THE TIMES-PICAYUNEBeau and Hartley Doussan at their home.

“We’ve never felt she’s any different,” Russell says. “We just looked at it as ‘We have two beautiful children.’”

After a series of tests, they got the devastating news that Hartley had two holes in her heart and was missing the atrioventricular canal that moves blood through it. She would need open heart surgery.

“That is not a term parents want to hear,” Russell says. “We came home and talked to many cardiologists.”

When they took Hartley to see Dr. Victor “Sam” Lucas, a pediatric cardiologist at Ochsner Medical Center, they were won over as soon as he picked her up and started talking to her.

“He was holding her like he was her dad. It was so sweet,” Ashley says.

Lucas wanted them to meet his colleague, Dr. Dennis Mello, a pediatric cardiovascular surgeon. He told them he was the doctor for Hartley.

“Some surgeons recommended waiting until she was bigger. He didn’t,” Russell says. “Dennis said, ‘Let’s fix her heart now. She’s going to be fine.’”

Russell and Ashley wanted to do the surgery as soon as possible because Hartley had started having shortness of breath. It was scheduled for Dec. 27.

“We said, ‘We’ll start the year with a new heart,’” Russell says.

The doctors tried to prepare Ashley. The told her the surgery would be long. They showed her pictures of babies attached to tubes and gauges after open heart surgery.

“But there was one thing I wasn’t prepared for -- handing my little baby over,” she says. “I didn’t know that moment was going to be so hard.”

Seeing Hartley afterwards, even with the tubes, was much easier.

“She had been gray and ashen before the surgery, and she was pink,” Ashley says. “She looked angelic.”

They had been told she would have to be in the hospital for more than a week, but Hartley did so well they were able to go home on New Years Day, and she is thriving. She gets physical therapy and occupational therapy, and she is trying to keep up with her brother. She goes to sleep happy and she wakes up happy.

“She’s been a blessing from the beginning,” Ashley says. “There’s something magical about her. It draws you in.”

During their many doctor visits, Russell and Ashley became friends with the surgical team. Ashley’s swimming career has taken her around the world, and when she and Mello were talking about traveling, he mentioned the medical missions he had helped organize.

“He had been to Paraguay and Russia, doing heart surgeries on children,” Ashley says. “But they needed funding to continue them.”

She and Russell knew Hartley wouldn’t have lived past 18 months without her surgery. When they asked how much a mission trip costs, they learned that a weeklong trip that would give 10 or 12 children life-saving surgery would cost $45,000 or $50,000.

“I was just picturing one of the mothers whose child can’t get the surgery,” Ashley says. “You watch her take her last breath and there’s nothing you can do about it. You literally watch your child die.”

Even before Hartley’s surgery, Russell started talking about raising money for a medical mission. For every $4,000 they could raise, he realized, they could give a child the chance to live.

“I said, ‘I have 50 friends with $1,000. I have 100 friends with $50,’” he says.

But Ashley wasn’t sure they could pull it off.

“I’m thinking, ‘Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money to raise. There’s no way,’” she says. “But Russell was adamant. He said, ‘This is something God wants me to do.’”

He talked to the Rev. Doug Armand at Church of the King in Mandeville about his idea of starting a nonprofit foundation, and his pastor put him in touch with David Bernstein, a tax attorney in New Orleans.

"I called him the next day, and he said he'd be happy to help us," Russell says. "David has been wonderful. Hartley's Hearts became a real foundation on March 24."

The nonprofit foundation will organize and fund medical mission trips to countries that don’t have pediatric heart surgeons and medical teams to perform open-heart surgery on children. The first weeklong trip is planned for Oct. 7 in Asuncion, Paraguay.

The team of doctors will pay their own way, and so will Russell. The foundation will pay for the nurses and an organizer who sees to all the details of the trip.

“We’re trying to get the needed medical supplies donated, but we’ll have to ship them,” Russell says, “and we’ll have to buy medicine in South America, because we can’t bring drugs into the country.”

During the trip, 10 children, including at least one with Down syndrome, will have open heart surgery, and other cardiovascular procedures will be done. So far, the Doussans have raised about half the money they need for the mission.

“It’s scary, but it’s so rewarding,” Russell says. “When somebody gives me a check for $500, it’s like we won the lottery.”

Their ultimate goal is to bring heart surgeons to the U. S. from countries that don’t have pediatric cardiac surgeons and have them get the training the need to go back home and do the surgery on tiny patients.

“Then, you’ve fixed the problem,” Russell says. “But it’s got to start with this one trip.”

Russell was moved by a story Mello told him about the grandmother of a child who received open heart surgery on one of his mission trips: She gave him her last chicken to say thank you. It was the only thing she owned.

“Having traveled around the world, I understand,” Ashley says. “You see how fortunate you are to be an American.”

Russell says the foundation is really about one thing: “It’s about healing kids who have no hope without you and giving them a long life.”

They understand the importance of Hartley’s Hearts when they look at their son and daughter.

“God gave us both children for a reason,” Ashley says. He gave us Beau so we could raise him and turn him into the man he can be, and he gave us Hartley to take care of us.”

“She’s raising us,” Russell adds, smiling. “She’s showing us what we need to do.”

To learn more about Hartley's Hearts or to make a donation, go to Hartley's Hearts Foundation or send a check to Hartley's Hearts Foundation, 1170 W. Causeway Approach, Suite C, Mandeville, LA 70471.

Sheila Stroup's column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday in Living. Contact her at sstroup@timespicayune.com or 985.898.4831.