Copeland’s CDH Story

Copeland was our surprise baby. Little did we know all the surprises he would come with. We went in for our 20-week anatomy scan, and after our ultrasound, our doctor told us to come back in two weeks because they had trouble getting images of his heart. We returned in two weeks, and they still could not get certain needed angles, so we were referred to a high-risk doctor. We learned about our sweet boy's left-sided Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia at the high-risk appointment. I can remember the fear that ran through my body as we were given his diagnosis. They referred us to the Monroe Carrell Jr. Children's Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. We were told there he had his stomach, intestines, and a small portion of his liver in his chest and that his heart was pushed to the right side of his body. Copeland also showed some backup in his kidneys, and his left lung was significantly smaller than his right lung. We met with his team, who were terrific, and we all prepared to meet this sweet little miracle.

Copeland was born on December 13, 2022, by elected C-section and came out screaming. He was not going to let CDH stop him from fighting his hardest. He was put on the oscillator vent and had his surgery on day three of life, where they discovered he had a sac that had formed around his organs and gave his lungs the best chance to grow. Due to the sac, Copeland had an entire right lung and half of his left lung. He also had a lot of organs in his chest — stomach, intestines, spleen, gallbladder, and 25% of his liver. They told us he also had Hypospadias. Hypospadias is when the urethra is not in the correct spot on the penis. Luckily, Copeland’s is not severe, but it caused a backup in his kidneys when I was pregnant with him. Fortunately, he will have surgery in October to correct it. He will have to wait until he is older in case they need to elongate his urethra. On December 15th, he was moved from the oscillator to the conventional vent. He needed to be put back on oxygen because he had difficulties weaning from his meds. He had a G-tube placed after some feeding difficulties, but we came home after around 80 days in the NICU! Now our sweet boy is almost seven months old and is starting to rock his feeds orally with only needing to use the G-tube once during most days and sleeps all night, so he is fed through the tube at night. He is finally reaching his developmental milestones and is such a sweet and happy baby!