Doctor finds box of Christmas presents under his bed - from his late wife

04 October 2023 , 01:13

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Jared is now a single father to his two children (Image: GoFundMe)

A doctor was left a box of touching Christmas presents under his bed - from his wife who died days after their second child was born.

"I feel like I'm waiting to take a breath, come up for air, and have this weight lifted. It never comes," Dr Jared Nelson said of the difficulty in moving on from his wife’s tragic death. "She will forever be in my heart, and in the hearts of our sons. They will know their incredible mother gave everything for them."

Jared and his wife, Dr Caitlyn Wilson went to hospital for a scheduled induction of their son, Gabriel, on December 12, 2022. But when Caitlyn broke her water, Gabriel changed position in her uterus compressing her umbilical cord - and Caitlyn was rushed into the operating room for an emergency C-section. Following a number of complications over the next 9 days, she tragically passed away on December 22.

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With one-year-old Lincoln to look after along with newborn Gabriel, life changed dramatically for Jared, who lives in New York. He recalled how his life was going as good as he could have hoped before Caitlyn’s untimely death: "I had a dream job. Two months before [her death], we had a picnic on the grass eating strawberries with our toddler, and we just felt like we had it made. We had everything we ever wanted and were busy and working hard. We were exactly where we wanted to be."

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But Jared didn’t want to celebrate Christmas without his beloved wife. But he knew he had to push through: "The morning of [Christmas] I realised that she would have wanted the boys to still have that, and feel that love from her."

Doctor finds box of Christmas presents under his bed - from his late wife

Jared and Caitlyn felt life was going perfectly before her tragic death (Facebook)

Gabriel, the newborn, was birthed successfully following a C-section (Facebook)

Just before Christmas, Jared discovered under his bed a box of wrapped gifts. On modest resident salaries, Caitlyn had been secretly selling her own clothes to make some money for some extra gifts - including a gun safe for Jared, a jacket and boots to shovel the snow. "It was a very sombre and moving moment," Jared said.

Although Christmas will forever come with reminders of the love of his life, Jared says he wants to turn the holiday into a time for the family to celebrate and honour Caitlyn. "December is going to be a hard month for us, but it’s also important to remember the joy we shared together," he told Fox News Digital. "The biggest assumption we make in life is that we will have tomorrow."

This year, for the 12 days leading to Christmas, the families are coming up with random acts of kindness they can perform to commemorate Caitlyn, who had the “most giving, charitable heart”.

Caitlyn had the “most giving, charitable heart” (GoFundMe)

When Caitlyn was having her C-section, the anaesthetic she went under caused her to bring up fluids, which she inhaled into her lungs causing difficulty breathing. Caitlyn was given an oxygen mask, in what was actually an “extremely common complication”, Buffalo anaesthesiologist resident Jared explained. But when complications continued over the next few days, “they stacked up and every day she got a little bit worse”.

Nine days later on December 21, Caitlyn asked to be put on a ventilator overnight due to her exhaustion. Her heart tragically stopped beating 12 hours later, and after a successful resuscitation the doctors found two blood clots in her legs and one in her heart.

"One by one over the next 12 hours we started seeing signs of severe organ failure. Everything started to slide,” Jared said tearfully when speaking to Fox News Digital. But Caitlyn tragically went into cardiac arrest again.

Jared and Caitlyn already had one child, Lincoln (GoFundMe)

"I remember looking in, and I tapped my wrist at the doctor in the room, asking how long they’d been running code, and he held up three fingers then four fingers," Jared said. "I turned to Cait’s dad and said, ‘She wouldn’t want this.’ And he was crying and said, ‘I know.’ I walked in and looked at the doctor and said, ‘I’d like you to stop.’"

Caitlyn passed away on December 22, just two days before Christmas Eve. "I knew that she had fought harder than anything she could have imagined, and I knew it was time. I just held onto her and I said my goodbyes," Jared recalled.

A GoFundMe page for the family has raised over $200,000 dollars as of Tuesday, October 3.