Support for Delaney's Family in Their Time of Need

On 1/4/2018, after 14 years of trying to conceive, handicapped by PCOS and endometriosis, Delaney “the Mighty” Quinn McGough was born, and I was reborn. Babies change EVERYTHING, and I was a new woman.

Although she was nonverbal, Delaney was very, very intelligent, soaked up learning like a sponge, and showed an incredible talent for drawing and playing music. We made sure she could swim before she was 2, being in Florida and all.

My husband has epilepsy, and we decided it’d be best if I could work remotely while he homeschooled Delaney. That way, I could be home in case of emergency. He taught her the alphabet, which turned into written communication. He taught the whole family to use ASL. He also practiced tongue and mouth positions to help her learn how to shape words. While she could not speak, she could DEFINITELY express herself.

Right before Christmas in 2024, she said her first word (“two”), and the next day started calling me “mommy.” A week later, she was saying Daddy.

On January 31st, 2025, Delaney and I had some solid mommy-daughter time when her daddy fell asleep at 10. It was Friday night, so we read some books, watched TV, had a dance party, and looked at silly videos she liked on YouTube. Finally, at 1:45 am, I put her to bed, said goodnight, I love you. And she said it back in sign language.

I didn’t hear any shenanigans (she sometimes forced herself to stay awake until dawn!), so I went to bed myself 30 minutes later.

On Feb 1st, my husband was up by 7-8 am, me by 11 am, and we planned to let DQ sleep until as late as 3 pm because she’d kept us up late all week.

At 1:45 pm, he thought he heard a noise in DQ’s room and went to check.

“She’s gone!”

And I burst out the door with no shoes on, running through the dirt, over the asphalt, screaming her name.

I jumped in the car to drive around the block hoping to see her, trying to calculate the most dangerous way she could have gone. Over the train tracks to the busy highway?! The other way towards the junkyard?!

I don’t see her anywhere, head back home where I called 911, and my husband took the car to look for her along that busy highway. He was back in minutes - the police had blocked off the end of our street and wouldn’t let him through and wouldn’t tell him anything while he was screaming, “Does that have anything to do with my daughter? IS THAT MY DAUGHTER?! TELL ME!!” as the police were cordoning off a retention pond.

Then I remember collapsing in the mud, begging, BEGGING for my daughter to be ok.

“Maybe they’re stabilizing her! Pleasepleasepleeease don’t take my baby. If she’s alive, she’ll be ok, just let them find a pulse.”

Then an officer apologized to us for our loss before anyone had actually informed us she was dead.

“Wait, she’s DEAD?!! She’s DEAD??! Nonononononononono!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

The buzzing in my ears.

MY life flashing before my eyes. The rest of my life without her. The ‘I’m not going to live through this. This is it for me.’

The calm, dissociative numbness everywhere except my stomach as I walked more police and detectives and DCF through the last 12 hours of Delaney’s little life.

She’d pried out the bars we wedged in her window, ripped through the middle of the screen, dropped her little yellow chair outside, and climbed out. She’d never tried to run away, climb out a window, nor had she shown any interest in that pond.

Until she did. While evading all motion lights and alarms.

As I said - she could swim, but the police said the pond was muddy, and from the look of the slope, it may not be up to 4:1 horizontal slope code.

We don’t have any idea what time she climbed out. The death certificate only listed the time she was found.

I lost 25 pounds in 30 days after that, developed insomnia, agoraphobia, and PTSD.

Now, 3.5 months later, I’ve had to resign because I can’t function. I’m eligible for rehire in 5 months, but in the meantime, I desperately need electricity/food/car insurance/to leave my house, to leave this city, this STATE. Maybe go to Seattle because it seems like the other side of the world at this point.

I can’t pass that pond, ever again. And since we moved to Jacksonville, there are zero places we’ve been without her.

Zero.

I need help. I just need help.

I can’t stop thinking about DQ’s last moments. I can’t make myself eat or sleep. I couldn’t make myself work anymore.

I just need to heal, even a LITTLE bit, before I can take care of myself again. I’m only just at a point where I feel like I could talk about Delaney to a therapist!

I need financial help to get into therapy and to give me more time between 2/1/25 and the day I feel human again. Please.