By KCAL/KCBS Staff | January 12, 2021 at 4:38 AM EST – Updated January 12 at 4:38 AM
LOS ANGELES (KCAL/KCBS) – A Los Angeles family is dealing with the unimaginable loss of a mother of six, whose youngest child was delivered weeks early while her mother was fighting the coronavirus.
Veronica Guevara-Giron, 37, died Thursday, just three days after giving birth to her youngest daughter.
“She tried. She fought to keep her baby in as long as she could until the doctors ended up saying, ‘No, we have to take the baby out,’” said her sister-in-law, Nathalia Giron.
The family’s nightmare started just before Christmas when Guevara-Giron, at 8 months pregnant, tested positive for COVID-19.
“She started saying that she couldn’t breathe… She developed a cough that wouldn’t go away… so they ended up taking her to the hospital,” Giron said.
After Guevara-Giron fought for more than a week with just oxygen, doctors were forced to deliver baby Imani five weeks early. She was rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit before her mother even got to hold her.
A day later, Guevara-Giron was placed on a ventilator and never got off it.
“They called her husband, saying that she wasn’t getting any better, that he could come see her,” Giron said.
With Guevara-Giron reportedly having no underlying conditions other than pregnancy, her family wants to make it clear how dangerous COVID-19 can be.
“It just goes to show that COVID has no gender, no age, no race, no religion. It doesn’t care,” Giron said. “Her No. 1 thing was to just be safe.”
The family has started a GoFundMe to help Guevara-Giron’s husband, a sanitation worker for the city of Los Angeles, who has an infant in the hospital and five more kids at home. It has raised more than $32,000.
“We’re trying to see if their dad can stay home a little longer,” Giron said. “We can give all the love and support that a family can give, but we will never amount to the person, the mother she was.”
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