Can you imagine giving birth while suffering from an infectious disease?
And more than that, can you imagine giving birth while in a coma?
One woman’s story proves that, with God, all things are indeed possible.
Angela Primachenko, a 27-year-old respiratory therapist, was 33 weeks pregnant when her spring allergies seemed to flare up. She wasn’t concerned at first—until she started running a fever two days later.
When she visited the hospital, she was diagnosed with COVID-19.
“I was taking precautions,” Primachenko said. “I didn’t go to work because I am pregnant. I don’t know where I caught it, I don’t know where it happened, but somehow I just ended up coming to the hospital and just getting sicker and sicker.”
A week after her diagnosis, she was struggling to breathe and was placed on a ventilator, with her life in the balance and the future uncertain.
As a respiratory therapist, Primachenko knew the danger of her situation. She was frightened for her own life and for the life of her unborn baby as well.
As her condition worsened, Primachenko’s doctors realized that the best course of action involved putting her into a medically induced coma. The coma would allow her body to focus on fighting off the coronavirus infection.
Primachenko’s family was frightened, wondering if mother or baby would come out of the infection alive. But they clung to their faith in God, praying for Primachenko’s recovery and the safe delivery of her baby.
“I don’t know how to make it through without faith,” said Oksana Luiten, Primachenko’s twin sister. “Faith for healing, faith for life after death, faith for it all.”
A few days after Primachenko entered the coma, the team of doctors decided to induce labor in order to deliver her baby.
It was a solution that many didn’t even think was possible! But the doctors believed it was the best chance for both mother and baby to survive.
And despite all odds, Primachenko—still in her medically induced coma—delivered a healthy baby girl named Ava, who was then rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).
The new mother remained unconscious for nearly a week after the delivery. When she woke up, she was disoriented and confused.
“I just woke up and all of a sudden I didn’t have my belly anymore. It was just extremely mind-blowing,” she admitted.
Though she had done the impossible and delivered her baby while in a coma, Primachenko couldn’t see her daughter in the NICU. She still needed to recover from her fight with COVID-19.
And by the grace of God, she did recover!
It was a triumphant day when Primachenko was able to come off the ventilator and leave the ICU. Her respiratory therapy colleagues gathered in the hallway to cheer and celebrate her recovery.
“Everyone did a standing ovation and just clapped me out of the ICU, which was so amazing and such a huge thing to be able to leave the ICU and go to the floors,” Primachenko remembered.
Primachenko was quick to give all credit for her recovery and Ava’s safe delivery to God! She knew that she would have never been able to survive the infection, the coma, and the labor without His mercy.
“It was just the grace of God,” she affirmed.
Although Primachenko, her husband, and the rest of their family know that Ava and her mother both have a long road to full health, they continue to draw strength from their faith in God’s goodness.
“It was a dark time,” Luiten admitted, reflecting on her own perspective after watching her sister battle the virus and come out alive. “I doubted and questioned my faith and God, I felt so powerless and so fearful and out of control.”
“But that’s how faith grows, going through times of uncertainty and seeing God gently calm my spirit again and again…and now seeing the end…I stand in awe of God. He is good.”
Primachenko reminded her family, “Even in the hardest days and the hardest times, there’s hope.”
“And you can rely on God and people and community. The amount of community people that were praying for me is just unbelievable. I was blown away and I’m so incredibly thankful.”
“And I feel like I’m a miracle walking,” she concluded emotionally.
Praise God for His faithfulness and goodness, even in these strange and trying times! Primachenko’s story is proof of His ability to make the impossible possible.