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Mom with coronavirus gives birth to twins while in coma

Atlanta mom Monique Cook gave birth to two healthy little girls while she was in a coma.
/ Source: TODAY

Monique Cook was eight months pregnant and sitting at home when she started to feel like she couldn't breathe.

"My contractions started coming two minutes apart, so I knew something was wrong," she said.

She immediately went to Piedmont Atlanta Hospital, where she was placed in the intensive care unit. She took a COVID-19 test and was shocked to find out she was positive for the virus.

Her doctors told her she would have to have a cesarean section, she said, and she remembers just trying to breathe. Someone told her to count down from 10 and everything faded to black.

She woke up from a coma five 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 Cook named her twin daughters August Sky and Angel Renee.
Monique Cook named her twin daughters August Sky and Angel Renee.Courtesy of Monique Cook

The hardest part for Cook was not being able to hold her precious baby girls or see her husband Andre as she recovered from the coronavirus.

"My husband sent one of the nurses a picture of the twins since I hadn't seen them. It was nine days," Cook said. The nurse was nice enough to take her own time to print the pictures out for Cook.

The girls were born on March 24 in Atlanta.
The girls were born on March 24 in Atlanta.Courtesy of Monique Cook

When the nurse showed her August Sky and Angel Renee, Cook said she just started crying and thought, "These are my babies!"

Cook is now home with her daughters and "it has just been awesome ever since." The newborns join big sisters Isis, 17, and Winter, 4.

She said she's so grateful to the doctors and nurses who saved her life.

"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," Cook said.

She also shared a message of hope amid the pandemic.

"People need to know that this is going to be okay," she said. "There is life after this."