A 22-year-old mother from El Paso, Texas, has died from complications of the coronavirus and never got to hold her newborn baby. Aimee “Jaqueline” Ayala was just eight months pregnant when she came down with COVID-19, but no matter how hard she fought she just couldn’t shake it, even delivering daughter Addison via emergency C-section before COVID-19 took her life.
Aimee tested positive for COVID-19 on November 7, the Daily Mail reports.
By November 13, her doctors decided to perform an emergency C-section to save her unborn daughter’s life, KTSM noted. Thankfully, daughter Addison Mariand Morales was born “safe and sound.”
But as a GoFundMe page created in the mom’s honor explained, after the surgery Aimee’s health quickly deteriorated.
“We did not know the risks [of] this c-section with her being infected with COVID-19 and having pneumonia,” Aimee’s sister Kimberly wrote on the page. “She DID know, and still accepted."
After the C-section, Aimee’s lungs became “inflamed.”
Her sister wrote that the new mom started suffering from anxiety attacks “in which she could not breathe.”
“The days passed and she got worse,” Kimberly added.
By November 28, the mom was intubated. She fell into “a cardio-respiratory arrest and her lung collapsed,” Kimberly shared.
For 15 minutes the mom was declared dead, but her doctors miraculously revived her.
Things would only get worse from there, however.
“She was pronounced brain dead, after three days in the hospital they unplugged her against our will,” Kimberly wrote. “She gave her life and her last effort all for her baby who is safe and sound.”
Aimee died on November 30 — more than three weeks after she first entered the hospital, KTSM reported. It’s not clear if Aimee was vaccinated before she came down with COVID-19.
“She could not hold her baby in her arms,” her sister wrote on the GoFundMe page before praising her sister's selflessness. “She shows us the love of a mother for her baby.”
Aimee’s husband, Juan Pablo Morales Orozco, told KTSM that their daughter has been helping him through this difficult time.
“I’ve been able to take her home, hold her and sleep with her. She has been a strength … she’s the one carrying me instead of me carrying her,” he told the news outlet.
The new dad said that he and Aimee had only been married for a little over a year when they learned she was pregnant — and they were thrilled.
Now the dad has vowed to “give myself completely to my daughter.”
“I’m going to try to be the best husband in the world for (Jaqueline) to fulfill her dreams … because she was the best wife in the world,” he shared.
So far, Kimberly’s GoFundMe campaign has raised more than $23,000 toward Aimee’s funeral fees.
“Knowing she never got to hold her, that was the worst part,” her sister told KTSM. “She loved her so much we know she did because she gave her life for her.”
As she wrote on the crowdfunding page, “She gave everything for the life of her baby. She left filled with the love of God. Due to these tragic events we ask your help for the services of my sister that she may rest in peace. May God repay you and fill you with Blessings.”
