DULUTH, Ga. — They have been waiting for nearly three months.
The family of Daysi Marcillo gathered outside her house on a sunny Monday afternoon. She has been in the hospital with COVID-19 since just after the New Year. She needed to be placed on a ventilator.
“She couldn’t breathe, and she was pregnant," her sister-in-law Liliana said. "She was 29 weeks pregnant.”
Daysi was in a medically induced coma when doctors performed an emergency C-section and delivered her son, Ragnar.
He weighed just three pounds. But after a stay in the neonatal intensive care unit, Ragnar developed enough to be allowed to return home.
But not Daysi.
She stayed in the hospital for months, with her family - including five children - unsure if she would survive.
“It’s very rare for somebody for her condition to come through," Liliana said. "There was a prayer circle in the Dominican Republic. There was a prayer circle in Puerto Rico, with my family. There was a prayer circle in Jamaica. There were prayer circles everywhere, just praying for Daysi."
On Monday, at 2 p.m., Daysi left the hospital.
At 2:30 p.m., a family’s pillar arrived.
“I’m happy," she told 11Alive's Matt Pearl. "I survived. And it’s a miracle.”
Her lungs are damaged. Family members believe she’ll likely be on oxygen for the rest of her life. But few thought Daysi would be here, holding her newborn son: a moment worth any pain and any wait.
“That’s the first time holding my baby since January," Daysi said. "It’s amazing. It’s amazing to see my family. It’s amazing to be here. I couldn’t ask for anything more than that.”
Daysi's family has set up a online funding campaign to help with her medical expenses.