Candice Davis had every reason to believe her first pregnancy was going smoothly. Her prenatal appointments brought reassuring news, and she experienced few symptoms — until June 14, 2025, just 11 days before her due date.
What began as an ordinary day soon changed. While sitting by her pool, Davis started feeling nauseated, and the discomfort later turned into pain in her upper abdomen. Her husband urged her to go to the hospital, but Davis hesitated. As a recruiter for an OB-GYN, she believed she would recognize a true emergency. Then her friend and OB-GYN, Dr. Susan Passarella, also told her to get to the ER, and Davis finally agreed.
At the obstetric emergency department at Baptist Hospital in Pensacola, Florida, doctors discovered that Davis’ blood pressure was high. The medical team decided she should remain under observation overnight, but her condition soon took a dangerous turn.
Her abdominal pain intensified, her blood pressure continued to climb, and her liver enzymes rose dramatically. Within two hours of arriving at the hospital, doctors were preparing to induce labor. Davis had planned for a natural birth, but as she put it, “everything kept getting worse,” and the team decided a cesarean section was necessary.
Anna Carolyn Photography
“And thank goodness we did,” Davis said. “I was in a lot of pain. They ended up giving me an epidural to help with the pain in the upper abdomen, which did not even touch it. I just remember I was scared. I physically knew that I could not birth my son naturally. I couldn’t even sit up. I was scared, but there was just so much going on.”
A C-section and critical complications
Davis was suffering from HELLP syndrome, a rare pregnancy complication associated with preeclampsia. The condition affects the liver and can trigger sudden, severe bleeding. Passarella said preeclampsia occurs in about 5% to 8% of pregnancies, but only around 0.01% to 0.06% of cases progress to HELLP syndrome. In most cases, patients improve after delivery.
Davis’ baby boy was delivered safely by C-section, but doctors then realized he had been pressing against a 17-centimeter injury in her liver. Once he was born, the pressure was relieved — and the organ began bleeding uncontrollably.
“When they were getting my son out, they said, ‘Oh, there’s not blood. This is good,'” Davis said. “And within seconds, it was, ‘Oh, there’s blood, there’s a lot of blood.’ The anesthesiologist came in and put a mask over my face, and said, ‘OK, we’ve got to put you out now.'”
Davis’ team had been prepared for this outcome because of her elevated liver enzymes. A surgeon was on hand, and the C-section had been performed in such a way that surgeons could reach her liver if necessary.
But the bleeding wouldn’t stop. Davis became too unstable for further surgery, forcing doctors to pack her body with sterile materials and wait overnight for her to regain some strength. She couldn’t breathe on her own. Passarella, who was receiving updates through Davis’ husband, feared her friend would never wake up.
“It was just one thing after another,” said Passarella, who has treated patients with HELLP syndrome. “He asked me, ‘Is she going to survive this?’ I didn’t know what was going to happen.”
“Something I’ll never forget”
After about 24 hours, doctors were able to stop Davis’ bleeding. The next day, she was able to breathe on her own and began to regain consciousness. But her first memory of the ordeal came two days later, when her then-4-day-old son was placed on her chest in the intensive care unit.
Candice Davis
“My blood pressure was still elevated, and Camden, my son, he was crying,” Davis recalled. “I heard my sister say, ‘Oh look, he stopped crying when he got on her chest, and her blood pressure immediately started decreasing.’ That’s something I’ll never forget.”
Davis still wasn’t out of the woods. Blood clots had formed in her left hand. She couldn’t take blood thinners because of the risk of her liver bleeding again. Doctors tried topical treatments and even a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, but Davis wound up losing her thumb and parts of her other four fingers on her left hand.
In the following weeks, Davis underwent six surgeries to remove the damaged tissue. The procedures were followed by intensive therapy to relearn how to use her hand.
Adjusting to the amputations while caring for a newborn was taxing, she said, even with the support of her husband and their extended family.
“Everything I had planned just went out the window,” she said. “It was a whole process in terms of what changed from what I thought was going to happen. I couldn’t change his diaper by myself. I had to get help feeding him. I couldn’t change his clothes.”
Candice Davis
Finding a new way forward
One year after her son’s birth, Davis and her family have found a new normal. She has surprised herself and her therapeutic team with the speed of her recovery, she said. She can do “all the things,” including caring for her son independently. Adaptive devices like a prosthetic thumb have helped her adjust at work and in the gym.
Her family spent the summer relaxing on the beach, she said. They considered taking a trip to celebrate her son’s first birthday, but decided instead to take it easy “compared to what we had last year,” Davis joked. She plans to compete in a relay race with Passarella in the fall.
Candice Davis
Davis said she hopes her experience will encourage others to pay attention to their bodies during pregnancy.
“You can have a good pregnancy, but don’t ever take that for granted,” she said. “I think it’s just really important for women to listen to their bodies, and if something doesn’t feel right, figure that out. Go get checked. Don’t just take for granted that everything is fine and it’s just a pregnancy symptom.”
Alex Sundby
