COTA for Team Cali

Our Story

Cali Camille Garcia was born on Jan. 31, 2025 @ 3:02 pm weighing 5. 1 lbs. Her journey, up until this point, has been a complicated but beautiful one.

Friday morning, Jan. 31st, while going to a checkup, the doctors noticed Cali’s heart was enlarged and underdeveloped, described to us as being primitive and functioning like a conduit. She was immediately diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy and severe heart failure. He then told us something we were not prepared to hear … The only solution is Cali will need a heart transplant and that we needed to go straight to the hospital to get her out to give her a chance to live. So at 33 weeks 4 days, Cali was brought into this world and, within a few hours, transported to the NICU at Le Bonheur.

After a very stressful 48-hour wait, without seeing her or knowing how she was doing, we finally got to Le Bonheur where we were greeted by doctors who explained how severe the situation was. Her heart was very sick (with an ejection fraction of 5% – 10%) and her size made her ineligible for any mechanical support. Also, her being a 33-week-old premature baby made her risk of simply not surviving the weekend very high. She needed a heart transplant but wouldn’t even qualify for one until she was 6.6 lbs. Not only did she need to grow quite a bit but the rest of her organs had to stay healthy as well.

Taking things one day at a time, Cali began to defy all expectations. After losing weight the first 2 weeks and getting all the way down to 3 lbs 14 oz, everything we were told she couldn’t do, she started doing. Coming off all breathing support, all sedation drugs, all pain medicines, tolerating high amounts of breast milk and even breast feeding 3 times. We got to spend time with our 5-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son, as a family, giving her baths, reading her books, playing dress up with different “Sundays best” outfits … Just living life to her fullest. Then, at 5 weeks old and 5.5 lbs, things finally caught up to her.

Cali’s heart started failing rapidly. She was rushed to the CVICU where she was intubated, put back on ALL the medicines and monitored intensely for cardiac arrest. As scary as this was, she survived this as well. She has now been in this state since and will need extensive continued support to make it until transplant. She is still not big enough for mechanical devices and depends solely on medicines.

On March 18th, 1 day after her original due date, Cali was declared eligible for the transplant list and listed as 1A (highest priority candidate) and ABOi (compatible with any blood type). This was a HUGE accomplishment! The NICU nurses and doctors and the CV nurses and doctors have put so much love and care into Cali to get her to this point.

Maybe most importantly, Cali, has shown so much strength and resistance. She proves every day that she wants to be here. As her parents, we could not be any more proud of her for the effort she puts in daily just to stay alive. All she needs is a new heart and she will be an unstoppable rocket ship headed to the moon.

For all the families and babies who have to go through a tragedy in order to save a life like Cali’s, it’s impossible to express the gratitude we have for y’all. I promise you this though, that heart WILL NOT go to waste.

Cali needs a lot of things to go very right. Most importantly, right now, she needs time. That time keeps extending as long as she is responding well to the medicines (preserving her current heart function) and continues growing in size. So we go day by day. We don’t live in hopes and dreams. We care about today and see what baby Cali can make happen. This is going to be an extremely long road (already has felt like an eternity). We still have yet to digest everything and the overwhelming information we get on a daily basis, but we are here to support her with whatever she needs and love her unconditionally .

“Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying.” Romans 12:12. Please keep our beautiful, little Cali in your prayers.

The Children’s Organ Transplant Association (COTA) helps children and young adults who need a life-saving transplant by providing fundraising assistance and family support. COTA is the nation’s only fundraising organization solely dedicated to raising life-saving dollars in honor of transplant-needy children and young adults. 100% of each contribution made to COTA in honor of our patients helps meet transplant-related expenses. COTA’s services are free to our families, and gifts to COTA are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law.