Hello, we’re Dustin and Destine , and we’re new parents! On October 28th, 2025, at 11:59 am, our beautiful daughter Caylor Belle was born! Less than 15 minutes after she was born, she was rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit at Baylor Scott and White Medical Center in Grapevine, Texas. She was rushed to the NICU because she was in respiratory distress and had fluid in her lungs. Upon arriving in the NICU, she was put on a CPAP machine and was wired to the gills with a heart monitor, O2 sensor, and OG tube for feeding. Shortly after getting to the NICU, an X-ray was ordered. That’s when they found a pneumothorax in her chest that was pushing on her heart and one lung, while also not allowing the other to inflate. They moved quickly and placed a chest tube to allow the air in her chest cavity to escape, in turn taking the pressure off her heart and lung and allowing the other lung to inflate. They also replaced the CPAP with a nasal cannula. The chest tube did its job and her vitals quickly made their way where they needed to be. It just meant that now, our precious little baby had a very delicate chest tube in her, and holding her or handling her became almost impossible outside of diaper changes (which we were SO THANKFUL we could still do).

After a few days of the chest tube, we made progress and got the go-ahead to remove the chest tube! Along with removing the chest tube, we also got the go-ahead to remove the nasal cannula to allow Caylor to breathe all on her own! AWESOME, we’re making progress! We got to hold her FINALLY after 4 days, and we also got to bottle feed for the first time! We got all the cuddles and snuggles we could that day! Everything was looking great, and we were expecting to go home soon!

During all of this, we’re an hour and a half from home at the hospital, so going home every night and driving back every morning isn’t an option. Hotels are expensive, so we have been staying on a family member's pull-out couch and leaving the hospital around midnight and arriving around 6:30 am the next day. We left the hospital Friday in the BEST mood; everything was going the way it should, TONS of progress all in one day! We got some MUCH needed sleep Friday night!

Saturday morning arrived, we stopped on the way to the hospital and grabbed donuts for each unit we were in during our stay! We got to the hospital and delivered donuts to all the nurses, and we headed to the NICU. Once in the NICU, we were given the report from the night before and given an update on the morning X-ray. No good news. We had blood in the stool, a lot of gas buildup in the GI tract, and a bad IV. The nurses quickly got to work, and a few hours later, we had a new IV placed in the umbilical cord, a new OG tube placed for feeding, and a TBD discharge date from the NICU. No feeding for 24 hours; baby will get IV nutrients, more tests to find out why we have blood in the stool and gas buildup, and no more holding or handling baby because of the fragile umbilical IV. Bad news.

We have no idea when we will be out of the NICU, we’re an hour and a half from home, PTO has run out from work, and the NICU bill is climbing day by day. Leaving our baby in the NICU and Destinee there by herself without me by her side doesn’t seem like an option. Trying to do my job when I can’t do anything but worry about the two people I love the most just doesn’t seem possible to me. Any donations would go to feeding mom and me while we’re here, as well as covering any lost wages, and at the end of the day, the mountain of a medical bill we are inevitably going to receive. If you read this entire story, I REALLY appreciate you! Thank you!