Francesca and Gabriel Garcia join us this week on the CDH Radio Show as they share their daughter’s journey after she was diagnosed with CDH shortly after birth.
Tune in to at 6:00pm EST, February 22, 2022 to https://www.blogtalkradio.com/cdh/2022/02/22/february-22-2022-guests–francesca-and-gabriel-garcia.
Listen to archives of the radio show at http://www.cdhradio.org.
Francesca and Gabriel had never heard the words Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia. They did not hear the words CDH until after their baby girl was born. Francesca shares, “Francesca was full term. I had no complications during my pregnancy. She was a c-section. Francesca had a true knot in her umbilical cord. So doing an emergency c-section saved her life from that but little did we know there was more health issues to come.”
For 104 days, baby Francesca would fight CDH. She would fight through four surgeries, from ECMO, to her CDH repair, and to her feeding tube. Francesca shares this about the surgeries, “they are all so scary. ECMO was the worst. At that time, we were given a 3% chance survival rate. Rady’s and Kaisers NICU were amazing! They were my home for 104 days. My family. The nurses, the doctors, all were just so supportive.”
Bringing home a CDH baby after fighting in the trenches and living the NICU life is hard. Francesca shares, “coming home with a CDH baby is scary. Any sick baby is scary. We already as parents have no idea what we’re doing but now we have to be a nurse, a doctor, a physical therapist, and it is a lot. We did it. And now she is as happy and healthy as we could wish for.”
Francesca will be celebrating her 10th Birthday this March, tune in Tuesday night to hear more about her journey with CDH.
If you would like to share your journey with CDH, visit https://cdhi.org/shareyourstory/.
