Hailey Okula’s husband, Matthew Okula, is holding on to their memories together following her sudden death at age 33.
Matthew uploaded a handful of “raw, unedited videos” from the couple’s wedding to her Instagram Stories on Friday, April 4.
“Our first dance,” Matthew captioned a clip of the pair dancing to Amanda Jordan’s “I Choose You” at their reception. “I want everyone to see a little more into who Hailey was outside of RNNewGrads ❤️.”
In the video, Matthew twirled his bride, who wore a strapless white wedding gown, before pulling her in for a sweet kiss.
“I choose you ❤️,” he captioned the post.
In a follow-up clip, Hailey changed into a sleek, beaded gown before they danced to Shania Twain’s “Man! I Feel Like A Woman!”
“The Hailey I fell in love with,” Matthew wrote via Instagram Stories, along with footage of his wife singing along with the lyrics and jumping up and down. “This video will definitely be reposted again later.”
Hailey, an ER nurse best known for sharing educational resources to her 451,000 Instagram followers, died on Saturday, March 29, shortly after giving birth to son Crew.
“We both looked at him and [it was] just Hailey’s personality. She said a little something because she saw how big he was. We had a quick little laugh there, she had a little tear on her face,” Matthew recalled to Fox 11 Los Angeles in an interview published on Wednesday, April 2. “Me and Crew walked out of the room and they said they were finishing up, she’ll be there in a moment. Literally a minute later, the doctor came in and let me know they’re doing CPR on her.”
He added, “I’m making the decision, ‘Am I going to the ICU with my wife or am I staying with my newborn baby?’ Not the decision we thought I’d be making. She had cardiac arrest.”
According to Matthew, Hailey’s doctors said she had a “very, very rare complication” known as amniotic fluid embolism (AFE). According to the Cleveland Clinic, AFE occurs when a pregnant woman gets amniotic fluid into their bloodstream before, during or immediately after childbirth, which can trigger an allergy-like reaction.
“There’s no treatment, there’s no way of diagnosing it,” Matthew, a firefighter in L.A., told the outlet. “It’s so sad to think of other people having to go through what I’m going through right now.”’
Hailey and Matthew were together for 13 years, initially meeting in college. They struggled with infertility before completing a successful cycle of IVF in early 2024. Hailey announced her pregnancy in September 2024.
“She wanted to be a mom so incredibly bad,” Matthew added to Fox 11. “I know she would be up there telling me, ‘You got it, raise this kid, don’t baby him too much, make sure you do everything we talked about doing.’ She gave her life in the most noble way.”
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