Featured CDH International’s New Jersey Ambassador is Renata Casella. Renata is the mom to CDH survivor Liliana.
Renata is a partner with the law firm of Veneruso, Curto, Schwartz & Curto, LLP located in Yonkers, New York and practices law in the areas of trust and estate planning and administration. She helps families plan for the their futures and assists then in all of their family planning needs, including preparation of Wills, Trusts, Powers of Attorney, Healthcare Proxies, and Living Wills. She, her husband, Matt, and daughters, Liliana (“Lily”) (5) and Juliet (2) live in Park Ridge, New Jersey. Her oldest daughter, Liliana, was diagnosed with CDH at 34 weeks in-utero and worked with an amazing team of doctors to do the necessary testing and come up with a delivery plan. Lily spent about 10 agonizing days in the NICU at Hackensack University Medical Center, had a corrective surgery on Day 2 of her life, recovered, and after a lot of post surgical observation and prayer received a clean bill of health a little after her second birthday. After Renata, Matt and their extended family went through the trauma of diagnosis, testing and delivery, Renata knew there must have been other people in similar situations. Unfortunately, the web has a lot of traumatic and scary stories and wanted to be able to share her family’s story of possibility and hope. CHERUBS offered that opportunity to her and now that CDH is in their rearview mirror, she hopes to be able to offer comfort and support to other families going through this very rare and little talked about condition.
