Texan Diana Garcia Martinez's Covid drama began almost seven months ago.

The 28-year-old, who lives in Kingwood, north of Houston, with her husband Chris Crouch and their four children at the time, complained of a headache and fever after a weekend in Las Vegas.

Since Martinez was expecting a child, she became restless.

The first 18 weeks of pregnancy had been uneventful.

Martinez had changed her diet, drank a lot of fluids and even stopped using face lotion so as not to pollute the fetus with any chemicals.

When the gynecologist suggested vaccination against the corona virus during an examination, the native Mexican refused.

"I didn't want to take any risks.

I thought that after all, humans have an immune system and I didn't want to do anything that would endanger the baby," Martinez told the Texas Tribune.

Her husband, an officer at the Harris County Sheriff's Office and, like her, very religious, had not been vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 either.

Three strokes and a heart attack

Today the married couple would decide differently.

When Martinez went to the hospital after returning from Las Vegas at the end of July with a headache and fever, doctors diagnosed her with the corona virus.

The oxygen level in her blood dropped and her lungs became inflamed.

When she was transferred to the Texas Children's Pavilion for Women, she could hardly breathe.

"The last thing I remember was they told me I was going to be put on a ventilator," Martinez said.

Since her child was not sufficiently developed at 19 weeks of pregnancy to survive outside the womb, it could not be delivered by caesarean section.

When Martinez's condition didn't improve for two weeks, doctors suggested extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), in which her blood was oxygenated by a machine.

"It didn't look good.

I was afraid to come home with a dead wife and a dead baby," her husband recalled.

After six weeks on the machine, the next abyss opened up.

While Crouch and Martinez's father stood by her bedside, she suffered three strokes and a heart attack.

When the doctors put the pregnant woman in an induced coma, Crouch began to pray.

A few days later, Martinez responded to a handshake from her husband, and their son was delivered by caesarean section at 31 weeks of pregnancy.

After months of anesthesia, she only found out about the birth three days later when the nurse showed her the newborn.

Now mother and child are back home.

Five days after being discharged from the hospital just before Christmas, Martinez, who continues to be oxygenated through a tube, had herself vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2.

"After everything I've been through," she said, "vaccination should be the least of your worries."