Imagine this: it’s midnight. Your pregnant wife wakes up in agony. You head to the hospital in Nogales where she’s diagnosed with preeclampsia. Her doctors want her to see a specialist at Tucson Medical Center (TMC) nearly 80 miles away.

Before you can wrap your head around the situation, they put her in an ambulance and she’s on her way. An hour-and-half drive. You’ll meet her up there in a few hours after arranging care for your three-year-old son. But before you can hit the road, you receive the life-changing phone call.

It’s your wife’s doctor. Her condition worsened enroute to Tucson. Her organs are failing. She’s being rushed into an emergency C-section. You won’t make it in time.

This account isn’t a ‘what-if’ scenario. It’s Paulo and Elizabeth Dos Santos’s story.

The first 48 hours were critical for baby Danna, who was born at 27 weeks. “It was really frightening because you come in and you just see three or four monitors and cables plugged in. You don’t even see the baby,” said Paulo. “I was thinking, ‘What now? What will we be facing?’”

Danna was a superstar. Her vitals were great, and she didn’t develop any complications. In the words of her doctor, she was perfect.

For the first two weeks, Paulo drove back and forth from Rio Rico every day so that his son, Phillipp, could have some normalcy.

But the stretch of I-19 between Tucson and Rio Rico is one of the deadliest roads in the United States. It’s dark and tedious – especially at night, which was when Paulo was driving, tired and drained after a day at the hospital.

When a social worker caught wind of the situation, she suggested the family apply to stay at the Ronald McDonald House. Paulo was worried about a lengthy application, thinking it would take months to get accepted. But the process was quick, easy and welcoming. They had a room at the House that same day.

“Staying at the House – I tell this to everyone – it’s a blessing. Nothing compares to the importance of being near to the baby.”

There was something for everyone. A bed for mom, a playroom for Phillipp and a workspace for dad. And the people at the House were so welcoming. Every day, a volunteer or staff member would ask, “How’s Danna? How are you?” When Elizabeth and Paulo answered, people truly listened.

Paulo quickly connected with other families staying at the House, wanting to continue the kindness that others had shown him and his family. He recalls one family that he met – a father and son from Mexico.

“The kid was here since December and he hadn’t seen his mom because his mom is on the Mexico side and she can’t cross. They had to pick up the car seat [from her] and they didn’t want to ride in the vans because it’s full of people. So I said, ‘yeah, I can drive you down.’ The idea was that I’d leave them at the border crossing in Nogales and they’d have to walk over and grab a cab on the other side. But I saw that the kid was so weak. So I phoned the company on the Mexico side and I asked the driver to cross to the States and pick the kid up at the border so that he didn’t have to walk.”

It was a small kindness that meant the world.

The Dos Santos family stayed at the Ronald McDonald House for nearly three months while baby Danna reached all her developmental milestones.

The family is now home in Rio Rico, where they’re oh so happy to have their family together.

When you donate to Ronald McDonald House Charities of Southern Arizona, you help families like the Dos Santoses stay together when it matters most.