The cause of death for beloved nurse Hailey Okula, who died on Tuesday while giving birth, has been revealed. Matthew Okula and his wife, who had been trying to conceive for two years, shared a brief moment of laughter about the size of their newborn just minutes before Hailey suffered cardiac arrest, Okula told Fox 11 Los Angeles Wednesday.
Okula told the network that Hailey went into cardiac arrest after suffering an amniotic fluid embolism. An amniotic fluid embolism (AFE) is a rare but severe complication that happens when amniotic fluid enters the bloodstream of a pregnant person shortly before, during, or right after childbirth, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Rare Cause of Death
"A minute later, the doctor lets me know that they're doing CPR on her. I'm making the decision, 'Am I going to the ICU to be with my wife or am I staying with my newborn little baby?'" the new dad said, holding back tears.
According to the National Institutes of Health, amniotic fluid embolism is the primary cause of maternal death during and immediately after childbirth, accounting for 7.5% of all cases.
"There's no treatment. There's no way of diagnosis it," Matthew said in the broadcast.
"It's just so sad to think that other people have to go through what I'm going through right now."
For Hailey, an ER nurse affectionately called "Nurse Hailey" by her followers, it was a heartbreaking end to her two-year journey to become a mother—one that had touched and inspired hundreds of thousands on social media.
"She wanted to be a mom so incredibly bad," Matthew Okula, a firefighter for LAFD, told Fox 11.
When Hailey was finally able to announce the joyful news in September, she expressed to her followers, "Being able to say that we are pregnant is indescribable."
Tragic End
"From my infertility problems, to my husband's infertility problems, to us having to create a special probe because we both carry the same genetic disease, lotsssss of meds and lots of money, the journey has been hard, but so worth it," she wrote at the time.
"Words cannot convey the depth of the loss I feel," Okula wrote alongside a heartwarming video collage of his and Hailey's relationship.
"I will never forget the moment I broke down, apologizing for the toll the process would take on her. She held my face, looked into my eyes, and said, 'We are a team, and we'll get through this together,'" he wrote.
Hailey dedicated her online presence to motivating and assisting fellow healthcare professionals.
In 2019, she founded the RN New Grads project, providing support and resources to help newly graduated nurses navigate the early stages of their careers.
"She was gorgeous, smart, hardworking, passionate, trustworthy, and, above all else, unbelievably loyal. For nearly 13 years, she stood by my side in the hardest of times, loving me endlessly, even when I felt undeserving of that love. She was my everything," Matthew wrote in the hours after her death.
