The baby named Button sure was in a hurry to come into the world. Ever since then, she’s led quite the life, as has her mother. It’s been a tough life all around. And they’re looking for help.
Button—officially Jrdyn (pronounced “Jordan”) Makaylee Duncan—was born on Oct. 16, 2023, at ProMedica Toledo Hospital at 22 weeks, a little more than half of the usual 40 weeks of a typical pregnancy. That means she was not only a preemie—a premature baby—but a micropreemie. Meaning, she was born with many physical problems because she wasn’t fully developed.
Since then, Button—it’s not because she’s cute as a button, although she is, but because in the womb she pushed up on her mother’s belly button—has been in two other hospitals’ neonatal intensive care units and in houses and apartments from Toledo to Columbus while receiving treatments, and still looking for a place for her and her mother to call their own.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Her mother, Stacee Duncan, tells the tale from the beginning.
Button’s story
Duncan said she and Button’s father broke up before Button was born. Compounding the fact that she was to be a single parent, she had her own medical problems, including epilepsy and age (she was 37; this was her first pregnancy). Duncan had to be on bed rest because her pregnancy was considered high risk.
But things were going well. Duncan said she had a house—complete with a space for a nursery—and a job. “I had stability,” Duncan said. “I was going to go back to work. But none of that took place having a baby at 22 weeks.”
Button was 15 ounces at birth. “Look at your cell phone,” Duncan tells a listener. “That’s the size she was.”
Because she wasn’t fully developed – “I had no third trimester, and that’s when 80 percent of a child’s body is developed,” Duncan said – Button spent the next five and a half months at ProMedica Toledo Hospital’s NICU.
“It was astonishing how developed she was,” Duncan recalled. Button had all her fingers and toe, but she had a long way to go.
Just as she was to have been discharged, Button developed a collapsed lung. For better care, she was taken to C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor; two months later for more advanced care, she was taken to Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus. She was discharged soon before she turned one year old.
In the meantime, Duncan said, “I was trying to hold onto my home near the Toledo Museum of Art, and my vehicle, while following Button from city to city. I couldn’t keep a job.” So she sold all that she could to survive. “To give her the best, I had to give up the rest,” Duncan said.
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Eventually, Button was discharged; she and her mother moved into a room in Duncan’s stepfather’s Toledo house, and later two other places. “I wanted to be close to family and to a hospital that knew her well,” Duncan said.
Since last November, Duncan has been meeting with groups and agencies to secure a more-permanent home, but with no luck.
In the past month, Duncan has broadened her appeal, to reach other friends and the public who might help. Overcoming reservations—“I was embarrassed and didn’t want to be a charity case, but Button didn’t fight for her life to have a life of mediocrity”—Duncan took the advice to ask for support via crowdfunding (gofundme.com/f/the-little-button-that-could).
“There has to be someone who will understand that I’m asking for help,” she said. “There has to be one ‘yes’ out there.”
In the meantime, Button and Duncan are in Columbus for a month or so of tests at Nationwide, which provides short-term housing.
“I’m looking to re-establish a stable life for me and Button,” Duncan said.
