A tragic new mum held the child she wanted all her life for one short moment before dying of Covid-19.
Kristen McMullen, 30, started showed symptoms of the deadly bug last month, weeks before her due date.
The young parent-to-be, from Melbourne, Florida, required an emergency C-section on July 27 as the virus was taking hold.
She had been in hospital for a week by the time she had baby Summer, but was rushed to intensive care as her condition worsened.
Mrs McMullen was able to hold her child for "a few short minutes before she was rushed off to the ICU", her devastated family say.
"She was able to hold Summer for basically just two pictures," the woman's aunt Melissa Syverson told Florida Today.
"One she had the mask on, and one she took the mask off. They took the quick pictures, she put the mask back on — and then they moved Kristen to ICU immediately after that."
It is not known whether she ever received the vaccine.
The ailing new mum was able to see her daughter in-person only once, but did enjoy a number of video calls on an iPad.
In an update on the fundraising page after her death, the her aunt wrote: "How do you write an update to something that is unimaginable? I was hoping I would wake up and the nightmare would be over."
Describing Mrs McMullen as a "bright, beautiful, vivacious girl with the world ahead of her," she said she would be leaving behind her "husband and best friend Keith and a beautiful one week old baby girl."
She posted: "The loss of Kristen is devastating to our family and we can't imagine life without her.
"She lit up the room wherever she was, her laughter was contagious and she will be truly missed every day until we all take our last breath.
"We're so thankful for the time we had with her and thank God for the blessing of her little girl that she left behind."
Her uncle James Syverson told NBC News that becoming a mother was one of her life goals - and she had hoped to "raise a big family" in the future.
He also explained that her family never considered that should would due from her illness.
"She never got sick, and we assumed like many people that this would just go away just as quickly as it came," he told the network.
"Because with a lot of younger people — she was only 30 years old — that she would breeze through it and be back taking charge of life."
This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged those who are pregnant - or want to become pregnant - to get vaccinated.
"The vaccines are safe and effective, and it has never been more urgent to increase vaccinations as we face the highly transmissible Delta variant and see severe outcomes from COVID-19 among unvaccinated pregnant people," CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a press release.
