Colorado Father Welcomes Infant Girl but Loses Wife on Same Day, Say Reports

An ambulance is seen a file photo. Stefan Wermuth/Reuters

A Colorado man welcomed his newborn daughter into the world, but he is mourning the loss of his wife, who died during childbirth.

Frederick Connie, the husband and father, said his wife, Keyvonne Connie, began suffering from hemorrhaging in their Littleton home, Fox31 reported on Dec. 5. She wasn’t due to give birth until mid-January, but the hemorrhaging started in late November.

“I’m like are you OK? And I see blood everywhere,” he said.

He rushed her to the hospital, and doctors presented him with an impossible choice.

“It was either give her the surgery first and maybe save her life, but you’re going to lose your daughter. Or your daughter can be saved but there’s a chance you might lose your wife,” Frederick Connie told the Fox affiliate.

He said he chose for his wife to have the emergency C-section to save their daughter.

“I’m glad I made that decision because in the end if Keyvonne probably could have survived she would have hated me for the rest of my life because I knew how she felt about kids,” Connie added.

He said his wife made it through the C-section and was in recovery before her health rapidly went downhill a few minutes later. He showed his wife pictures of the infant girl.

“I gave her her mom’s name. She’s going to know her mom. I’ll make sure of that,” he said of his daughter’s name, Angelique Keyvonne Connie.

“Literally all of her insides just went all over the bed and the floor,” he told Fox31. “They tried [to save her] and her heart couldn’t take it. She died before they could even get her to the surgery.”

The report said she later passed away, dying the same day the girl was born. “They got me a room in labor and delivery and I’m the only man to ever have a room in the labor and delivery and the mothers there said it was OK,” Connie said.

He said the infant girl has health issues of her own, and she’s expected to stay in the hospital for as long as several weeks. She is consuming donated breast milk and wearing donated clothes.

“I’m [ignorant] on changing diapers but I’m going to learn. I’m going to be a full-time father to her,” Connie added.

Connie’s boss, Justin Collins, started a fundraiser on Facebook to help the new father.

“Along with caring for her is hospital bills, a funeral, and all the basic needs for caring for a child ...  I can’t Imagine any more difficult time then this in a persons life (sic),” Collins wrote.

Other details about their case aren’t clear.

Risk of Death Doesn’t End After Childbirth

According to one doctor, a woman’s risk of dying during pregnancy doesn’t end once the baby is born.

“People think that once the birth is over, that that’s the acute event, but many of these things happen after delivery,” said Dr. Barbara Levy, with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told WTOP.

“Blood clots in the legs that go to the lungs happen after delivery; many of the hemorrhages happen after delivery; the heart failure cases almost uniformly happen after delivery. So there are quite a number of conditions that can impact a mom’s health, far beyond the act of having that baby,” she stated.