The Anderson Family

Scroll down to see updates as the Anderson family progresses in their CDH Journey! (All updates are written and given by parents with consent)

Update 12/2/24

Hi, we are the Anderson Family! We live in Omaha, NE with our 2 year old daughter, Naomi. We found out we were pregnant with our second child in May and were so excited to complete our little family with a baby boy! At our 20 week ultrasound, we were told that there may be something wrong with his heart. We saw the MFM a week later and found out the diagnosis was actually LCDH and a CPAM on the right lung. We were told that his chance of survival was only 10-15% percent. This was the most devastating news, and the doctor gave us no hope for our sweet little boy. We decided to do our own research on CDH and found so many amazing stories of survival and how strong these little CDH babies are. We got in touch with Dr. Kays’ team at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, FL. I went down in October with my mom and sister to meet the team and have some additional testing. Our plan is to relocate from Nebraska the week of December 9th and deliver soon after Christmas. They are expecting baby boy to need ECMO in the beginning and have about a 10-12 week NICU stay after that. This has been such a hard and scary process from the diagnosis to deciding to relocate for care, but organizations like the Eden Calhoun Charitable Fund make it possible and help lessen the financial burden during this time. We feel so blessed that we have found such an amazing medical team to care for our little boy, Callan Douglas, and so many other great resources to help us along the way. 

Update 12/30/24

We finally got some good/hopeful news! I had my third fetal MRI on Friday the 20th. This one only took about 2.5 hours instead of 3.5 hours like my second one! lol The report showed that they were unable to find the CPAM on the right lung which means it has either drastically decreased in size or disappeared! This was confirmed by the OBGYN on Monday, but we have not had a chance to talk to Dr. Kays about this yet. However, this should hopefully help Callan's case quite a bit as Dr. Kays had previously said he would be very confident in this case "if it wasn't for the CPAM."

I officially have an induction date set for Sunday, January 5th. Callan has been doing really well at all of my check-ups. He is growing well, moving a ton, and doing lots of practice breathing on all of the ultrasounds!

We were able to move into the other house on Sunday the 22nd and already feel right at home! We are so thankful for the Ronald McDonald House and all of their support, but it sure is nice to have our own space again. There is a big room that Naomi has designated as her playroom and an awesome playground just behind the house. We were so happy to get into this space before Christmas to be able to decorate a little, bake some cookies and set out some presents under the tree they provided. Naomi was definitely spoiled a little too much this year with presents, but we are so glad we could keep a sense of normalcy for her even though we couldn't celebrate with the rest of our family.

We have been taking advantage of the warm Florida weather playing outside any chance we get and taking another trip to the beach yesterday! Naomi is going to be so disappointed back in Nebraska where she can't go to the beach on a regular basis. This girl is definitely a water and sand loving girl!

I'm going to try to spend the next week just relaxing, packing my hospital bag and getting some things prepped for Callan's arrival. It feels so close yet so far away. The nerves are definitely kicking in, but I'm so excited to meet our sweet baby boy!