There's no doubt about it – a CDH diagnosis will change your life forever. It will be scary, emotional, overwhelming, and probably feel like a rollercoaster ride full of intense ups and downs at first. But through it emerges blessings you never expected and strength you never knew you had.

“Being an advocate” was something I had heard of, but it really didn’t mean much to me until I received our CDH diagnosis. I had mostly just heard of that phrase as it pertains to “patient advocacy” when I was going to nursing school many years earlier. I never guess that being an advocate would be a role I would take on in a new way, and become one of the many hats I now wear as a parent.