A woman in St. Louis, Missouri, gave birth to a baby girl while intubated due to complications related to COVID-19. She eventually named one of her nurses as a godmother to her child, according to CNN.

"When I was in my hospital bed, I felt some type of positivity around like a guardian angel," Monique Jones told CNN.

The 28-year-old said she was 26 weeks pregnant when she began to feel ill and short of breath. After two days at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, her condition began to worsen and doctors put her on an ECMO machine, essentially an artificial lung that CNN called the "highest form of life support."

Her condition did not improve and doctors thought she might not survive, so they decided to perform an emergency cesarean section, according to ICU nurse Caitlyn Obrock, who cared for Jones while she was intubated. 

Jones' daughter Zamyrah was born on Sept. 23 at just 29 weeks, weighing only about two pounds. 

Doctors transferred Zamyrah to the neonatal ICU wing at St. Louis Children's Hospital, but Obrock made sure to keep photos of the small child around Jones as she battled to survive COVID-19, according to CNN. 

"With Monique being pregnant, she's only a year older than I am, I just felt, like, a strong connection with wanting her to do well. She truthfully was a light to me. You know, we have to hold out hope," Obrock said. 

The emergency cesarean section did help, and Jones' condition improved. She was eventually moved to another facility after being taken off of the ECMO machine on Oct. 1.

Obrock said Jones had to relearn how to walk after what happened to her but she was finally able to hold her daughter on Oct. 20. 

Obrock threw Jones a baby shower and organized efforts to help donate money and gifts for both the mother and her child. 

Jones and Obrock are now extremely close, and after Zamyrah was able to come home on Dec. 10, Jones decided to name Obrock her godmother. 

"A godmother to me is like a support system," Jones said. "And I felt like she fought for me."

Jones spoke with Good Morning America about her harrowing and heartwarming story.

"It was possible that I wouldn't live — that's all I was thinking. They asked me if it was possible to take my baby out. At first, I told them, no, but I wasn't getting any better," Jones said. "I am happy and grateful that I'm still here but at the same time it's still overwhelming."


A GoFundMe page has been created to help Jones cover the massive medical bills she's facing from the lengthy hospital stays for her and her baby. 

“I don’t want her away from me. I feel like she was away from me for too long,” Jones later told local news outlet WVLT.

On the GoFundMe page, Jones' fiancé Jamez Prewitt said they were astonished by the response to the story.

"We really weren’t looking for people to donate nor were we even expecting her story to be such a huge thing around the world," Prewitt said. "So this is for the people who have been asking about donating to her and our beautiful baby girl. We're really not expecting too much because we are more than grateful just for Monique making it through covid while pregnant with our child."