"I couldn't feel my bump anymore": Woman in COVID coma wakes to newborn twins
A UK woman who was pregnant in a coronavirus coma woke up to a surprise as she had given birth.
Perpetual Uke was six months pregnant when she fell ill with the virus in March, and feared she would be unable to safely deliver her children.
She was put in an induced coma for almost a month.
Doctors quickly decided that it would be safer to deliver her twins via a premature caesarean and brought the children into the world on April 10th, while Perpetual remained unconscious.
When she woke from her coma 16 days later, she was convinced she had "lost" her pregnancy.
"I was pregnant at 24 to 25 weeks, at that stage, and by the time I woke up, I was so disorientated," she told Sky News.
"I thought I'd lost my pregnancy because I couldn't see my bump any more. I was really worried and disorientated."
Her twins Sochika Palmer and Osinachi Pasal were cared for in the neonatal intensive care unit for 116 days.
Uke's husband Matthew told the BBC, "Every passing day I was hoping my wife was not among those who are dead."
"We are a team, the idea she might not be there was really difficult to accept."
Perpetual was "very emotional" when she met her twins for the first time.
"I was happy that we were all alive, but obviously concerned about their severe prematurity which has its own risks," she said to The Express and Star.
After the coma, she was "so confused" that the children were hers.
"When they showed me the pictures, they were so tiny, they didn't look like human beings, I couldn't believe they were mine," she said.
The happy family are "getting better" each day after an intense almost three months in the ICU.
Photo credits: BBC