Support Delilah’s Fight Against Polycystic Kidney Disease

Delilah Lainey Hepler is a fighter! Nicole and Hunter just welcomed their fifth baby girl. After a traumatic delivery due to a shoulder dystocia, it was discovered she was born with Polycystic Kidney Disease. Delilah and her family have a long road ahead of them and need all the prayers and support from the community. Hunter and Nicole will both be out of work and will need to commute to DC to be with their baby—as well as their four other children. If you are able, please donate to help ease the burden on this family.

From Nicole & Hunter:

Our sweet Delilah has been welcomed into the world and has been on quite the adventure in the last 36 hours.

Delilah was born at 4:17 am on 4.10.2025. I was 37 weeks and 1 day pregnant. She weighed 8lbs 13oz and 20.5 inches long. She had a hard time coming out and lost oxygen to her brain for a a few minutes causing her to be on oxygen almost immediately after coming out. She was sent to the NICU. About an hour or so later they came back to tell us that she would need to be transported to VCU to be put on a cooling blanket for 3 days and then slowly warmed back up and to watch her brain activity because of not having oxygen to her brain for about 3 or more minutes.

We are hoping to finally get to actually hold our baby on sunday evening ❤️

I was discharged about 6 hours after giving birth to go be with her down at VCU and when we arrived there we find out more about what’s going on with

We were transported to Childrens National Hospital in DC last night and got here around 4am. We are being told Delilah had polycystic kidney disease. Her kidneys are VERY large for her age and she is not able to urinate. She is going to have to be put on dialysis and later on down the road a kidney transplant.

Delilah is also on a ventilator to help her start breathing on her own. She has been making good progress with that.

So as of right now our whole lives are now changing. Delilah will be staying in the NICU in DC for a minimum a few weeks to a month IF everything goes smoothly. If any complications occur it could be longer.

We need all the prayers we can get for our babygirl