A man from Littleton, Colorado, was forced to make a heartbreaking decision last month: Should he choose to save his wife or their baby?
Frederick Connie recently opened up to local news station KDVR about what happened when his pregnant wife, Keyvonne, who wasn’t due to give birth until mid-January, began hemorrhaging at their home on November 30.
“I’m like, ‘Are you OK?’ And I see blood everywhere,” Frederick recalled.
At the hospital, doctors told Frederick he needed to make a choice. “It was either give her the surgery first and maybe save her life, but you’re going to lose your daughter,” he told Fox 31. “Or your daughter can be saved but there’s a chance you might lose your wife.”
Frederick did what he believed Keyvonne would have wanted. He picked the baby. “I am glad I made the decision, because in the end, if Keyvonne could have survived, she would have hated me for the rest of my life because I know how she felt about kids,” the widower explained to Fox 31.
Keyvonne, who underwent an emergency C-section, lived long enough to see photos of the newborn before dying of heart failure. Frederick named the little girl Angelique Keyvonne Connie, after her mother. She will be called “Pooder” for short.
“She’s going to know her mom,” Frederick told Fox 31. “I’ll make sure of that.”
Born prematurely on November 30, Pooder is still at the hospital, where she is being nourished with donated breast milk. “Little Angelic ‘Pooder’ is doing awesome!” Frederick wrote in a Sunday, November 9, Facebook post. “In fact, doctors say she gets to go home either Tuesday or Wed!!! What a turn around.”
“I’m [ignorant] on changing diapers but I’m going to learn,” Frederick said. “I’m going to be a full-time father to her.”
Frederick’s boss, Justin Collins, launched a Facebook fundraiser to help him with medical expenses and funeral costs.
