Atlanta, GA — Monique Cook was 8 months pregnant with twins when she tested positive for the coronavirus. While in a coma, she had to undergo an emergency procedure to give birth to healthy twins.
“My contractions started coming two minutes apart, so I knew something was wrong,” she told Today about her experience last March while 34 weeks pregnant.
Monique was taken to the hospital, where she had to be placed in the intensive care unit. She was then diagnosed with COVID-19 and doctors encouraged her to consider delivery via cesarean section. She said she remembered being told to count down from 10 before everything went black.
She woke up from a coma 5 days later.
“The worst part of that waking up, I look down and I have no big stomach. No babies,” she said. “I remember asking like, ‘Where are my babies?’ That’s when the young nurse said, ‘Oh, your babies, they’re fine.’”
Monique was sad that she was not able to hold her babies named August Sky and Angel Renee after giving birth or even see her husband while she had coronavirus. For 9 days, she was only able to see them from pictures given to her by a nurse.
Now, Monique is relieved to be at home with her newborn daughters as well as her older daughters 17-year old Isis and 4-year old Winter. She has, “It has just been awesome ever since.”
Moreover, she is expressing her gratitude to the doctors and nurses who took care of her and her babies. “This story could have ended differently, listening to how many deaths from this, the COVID-19 like, the numbers go higher and higher just about every day. I actually survived,” She added.