So Sad: Nurse Who Welcomed Her 7th Child While in ICU Dies from COVID Complications Before She Could Hold Newborn

Tawauna Averette, a 42-year-old cardiac unit nurse in Dayton, Ohio, died on Tuesday due to COVID-19-related complications after she gave birth to her seventh child.

Sadly, according to her husband Charls Averette, Tawauna passed before she was even able to hold her little one.

via People:

“It’s hard,” he said. “She was everything for us, and we don’t have her no more.”

The mom started showing symptoms of what the family thought was a head cold in October, while she was pregnant with her youngest child, according to Charles.

Tawauna tested positive for COVID-19 later that month at an urgent care facility and was soon admitted into the intensive care unit after having trouble breathing, he told WHIO-TV.

While she was in the ICU, Tawauna gave birth to her daughter Skye via C-section six weeks early.

Friends of Tawauna said the mom was not able to hold Skye before she died.

“[Nurses] took the baby out of the room – that was it,” friend Kellye Albes-Fisher told WHIO-TV. “She never got to bond.”

Charles said Tawauna had previously been hospitalized with pneumonia, so the family was concerned and the mom took every precaution she could to avoid contracting COVID-19.

“We knew … she would be susceptible to it, but … it got her, ” Charles said.

Charles told Dayton Daily News that Skye did not contract coronavirus and is doing well at home.

“We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Tawauna Averette,” a spokesperson Kettering Health Network tells PEOPLE in a statement on Friday. “She was a beloved and valued member of our Kettering Health Network team, and our thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends in this time of loss.”

Since Tawauna’s death, a GoFundMe campaign has been launched in support of the family.

As of Friday, there have been more than 15,928,400 COVID-19 cases and 295,600 deaths from coronavirus-related illnesses in the United States, according to a New York Times database.

We bring you this tragic story as another reminder that COVID-19 cases are skyrocketing and the pandemic isn’t getting better at the present time. Protect yourselves, protect your loved ones.