11/27/2025
Happy Thanksgiving to all the warrior families out there.
Charlie Polizzi's Warrior of the Angels
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Charlie Polizzi’s Warrior of the Angels is a nonprofit foundation raising awareness for Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH).
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Charlie’s Story
Charlie is our miracle baby boy. Tom and I struggled with infertility and had to go through IVF in order to conceive our Charlie. During all our ultrasounds he was so active and his heart rate was very healthy. Going through IVF I had weekly ultrasounds and anti-rejection IV treatments up until 12 weeks gestation. We did everything that the doctors recommended. I went through numerous procedures and tests and received 1000's of hormone injections and treatments. Our first trimester was supposed to be the hardest. With all the stress of IVF treatments and intermittent spotting nothing else could trump the stress of the first trimester. Boy, was I wrong.
At my 20 week anatomy scan my local MFM informed us that we will be going to CHOP and that our baby boy has something called a Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia. My husband and I both just went numb. When we walked out of the ultrasound room I could not hold back the tears. An appointment was scheduled for 2 days later in Philadelphia. We had to come back to get some blood work done so we went to a nearby restaurant. We knew our baby boy was a fighter. Our local doctor told us our Charlie had a mild case of CDH and only had his stomach up in his chest cavity.
Two days later we took the 4 hour trek to CHOP to have our initial testing done which consisted of an MRI, ultrasounds and ECHO. When the ultrasound tech labeled the liver up in his right chest I lost it. We went to having a mild case of CDH to having severe case. He only had about 30% lung capacity at our first visit and everything was up in his chest cavity. He was given a 60% chance of survival if born at term and at CHOP. Dr. Johnson went over the test results. My parents, Tom and I could not hold back our tears. I had an Amnio done to eliminate any genetic issues. Everything came back perfect from the Amnio. We were instructed to come back on January 23, 2018 to have more tests and have the FETO surgery completed.
Fast forward a month and numerous tests later we found out that he had taken himself out of the severe group and no longer qualified for the FETO surgery. We were all prepared to relocate and had packed our lives up to live in Philadelphia for months until our Charlie could come home. We were instructed to go home until March 1st, our next rounds of test. Unfortunately for us the upturn in his prognosis made a drastic change for the worse.
