ICU nurse Ashlee Schwartz arrives at work at Mercy Hospital in Arkansas and immediately checks their COVID-19 stats. She says the cases had surged in the summer – and most of the patients were unvaccinated. One August day, a patient stood out to Schwartz – Emily Robison, who was just 22 years old.
The CDC says battling COVID-19 while pregnant can lead to severe complications. They request all people over the age of 12 to get vaccinated – including pregnant women.
Robison’s husband, Eric Robison, had mentioned to the reporters that neither of them were vaccinated when his wife was admitted to the hospital.
Being aware of Robison’s condition, Schwartz was concerned for her and her baby, who would be named Carmen. “I knew that, more than likely, Carmen, their little girl, would be home well before Emily would be,” Schwartz said.
“All I could image was, if Emily could truly overcome COVID, and she made it home and she just walks into her house and she doesn’t have much of anything for this little girl, and she just looks around and just says to herself, ‘Why couldn’t have someone helped me?’ So, I literally just felt called to make sure Emily had what she needed,” she said.
Schwartz also said she later met Eric, who is 23, and he said they didn’t have much for their baby, except for clothes. He also didn’t know what a baby registry was, Schwartz said.
“I happened to just walk down the hall and I saw Eric sitting in this chair, just staring into Emily’s room. I just all of a sudden thought to myself, ‘This could be me,'” she said. “And you know, it’s the truth with COVID, I mean any patient’s story that’s in our ICU could very well become our own story. I mean, I could be the one laying in the bed. Or I could be the one sitting in Eric’s chair.”
After meeting Eric, Schwartz was compelled to help the couple. So she wrote in a private Facebook group for fellow nurses, asking if anyone would be interested in chipping in for a baby registry.
She made two registries – or lists of specific gifts for expecting couples and their babies. When nearly everything was bought off those registries, she made a third.
The story went viral on social media and on the local news. In less than two weeks, strangers had sent the Robisons hundreds of baby gifts.
“I got to do the fun part. I got to do the registry and be like, ‘Oh, I’d want this and I would want this.’ But then, it’s the community and it’s the nation that’s coming together and just gifting this little girl,” Schwartz said.
Robison died on September 20, but her daughter was born via emergency C-section at 29 weeks. Born at 2 pounds 9 ounces, Carmen is still in the NICU. But Eric said she should be able to come home in seven days.
She had a vision of Robison going home to be surprised by the gifts. But that unfortunately could not happen