COVID-19 nearly killed her. Now the new mother has become a source of comfort for those going through their own fight with the virus.
Shaquilla James gave birth to Aubree Pearson two weeks early in the spring but only had a moment with her before she isolated herself to protect her daughter. James had already tested positive, but she didn't know how soon after she'd fall into a coma.
As first told by The Sumter Item in May, James spent two weeks in the ICU after being dubbed the first COVID-19-positive woman to give birth in McLeod Health's seven-hospital system. The Summerton resident's survival spurred a motivation to share her story to help others and urge recovered COVID-19 patients to donate convalescent plasma - blood that contains antibodies recovered patients develop to fight off the virus - to current severely ill patients.
"I would tell anybody what I went through just to reach out," James said. "People from my hometown, people will @ me (reach out on social media), and some even came by to say they had it but that they weren't making it public. And they'd ask me about it. About how did you feel and what did you do?"
After her initial story ran in The Sumter Item on Mother's Day, other news outlets around the region and Carolinas started reaching out to the new mom. The national spotlight shined on her last month.
"Their PR person reached out to me on Facebook and asked if I would like to do an interview," she said of NBC News' TODAY. "I said yes."
When she appeared on TODAY, Co-Anchor Hoda Kotb featured James and two other mothers who gave birth while sick, one from Ohio and another from New Hampshire.
After hearing the stories of their "miraculous recoveries since giving birth," Kotb revealed she wanted to help the mothers.
"I think you guys missed out on a lot of things that new moms get. And we thought, what a shame that you didn't get a baby shower. But then we thought, maybe we can fix that," she said, unveiling a box of surprises at each mother's front door. The box included coupons for a year's worth of diapers and wipes.
The surprise was part of a special TODAY series, "Summer on TODAY," celebrating milestones missed due to COVID-19, from graduations to birthdays and even weddings.
James said she still talks to Kelly Orton, the nurse who cared for her when she was in a coma at McLeod Regional Medical Center in Florence. The 26-year-old is also part of McLeod Health's Nurse Family Partnership program that connects first-time mothers-to-be with a nurse from pregnancy until the baby turns 2.
"And Alison (Baggette), I talk to her every day," James said. "Like Aubree just got her shots, and she helped me through it, like what she needs and what I can expect. She is always asking if I'm OK dealing with her and what I've been through. It's a blessing. I'm grateful for both of them."
Aubree, Mom said, is "getting bigger by the day." She'll be five months old on Sept. 5.
"She's going to be a sassy little mamma. She loves to talk," James said with a proud voice over the phone.
The mother said she was surprised about the response from her story. She wanted to tell it and still tries to be a "living testimony," but she didn't expect how far it would reach.
"More people care about me than I thought they would have," she said. "People I don't even know reached out to me."
Watch Shaquilla James on TODAY: https://on.today.com/2Q6JYVw
Read The Sumter Item's original story on James: https://bit.ly/31HpHfM
Watch The Sumter Item's Sumter Today episode featuring James: https://www.theitem.com/stories/sumter-today,345212?
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