Man welcomes baby daughter, loses wife to emergency C-section on same day

Nov. 30 will forever be the most bittersweet day of the year for a Littleton, Colo., father who became a dad on that day but lost his wife to childbirth complications in the process.

Frederick Connie was shocked to find his pregnant wife, Keyvonne, hemorrhaging inside their home Friday morning, especially since she wasn’t due until January. “I’m like, ‘Are you OK?’ And I see blood everywhere,” he told Denver news station KDVR. She was not, so he rushed her to the hospital, where doctors presented him with an unthinkable scenario.

“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,” he told KDVR. So Connie opted for an emergency C-section, which would save the baby — and he has no regrets. “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,” he says.

Mercifully, Keyvonne survived after the C-section long enough to see photos of the baby girl, who is battling her own health issues and could spend up to a few weeks in the hospital until she’s released. A few minutes later, though, the mom’s condition plummeted. “Literally all of her insides just went all over the bed and the floor,” Connie says. “They tried [to save her] and her heart couldn’t take it. She died before they could even get her to the surgery.”

With the blessing of the other mothers who had just delivered, Connie became the first man ever to be given a room in labor and delivery at the local hospital, he says, due to the unique and tragic circumstances. The dad decided to name his baby girl Angelique Keyvonne Connie. “I gave her her mom’s name,” he told KDVR. “She’s going to know her mom. I’ll make sure of that.” Connie affectionately refers to the baby by her nickname, Pooder.

Pooder’s doting dad is learning the ropes as he prepares to raise her on his own. “I’m [ignorant] on changing diapers but I’m going to learn,” he says. “I’m going to be a full-time father to her.” While at the hospital, Pooder is being fed donated breast milk and wearing donated clothes. Connie calls his financial situation “not OK.” He says, “This debt is like piling up and I have to bury my wife, my daughter coming into the world.”

He says if it comes down to selling all his possessions and sleeping in his car, he’ll do it — anything to take of Pooder. But his work colleagues hope it won’t come to that, and his boss, Justin Collins, has launched an online fundraiser to help the grieving new dad get his footing.

Collins writes of Connie, “He has always been a hard worker during the time I have known him and always provided for his family. … I can’t Imagine any more difficult time then [sic] this in a person’s life.”

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

• Woman names baby after officer who helped with delivery on the side of a highway: ‘She was an angel’

• Couple marries in the hospital after baby suffers brain injury: ‘We are very fortunate’

• Utah police officer applauded for holding woman’s baby while she filed domestic violence report

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