It was a miracle in Mineola.
A pregnant Long Island woman in a coronavirus-induced coma got a pair of priceless birthday gifts when she awoke from the medical slumber on her 41st — and learned she’d given birth to a daughter just two days prior.
“For me, it was the best medicine I could have,” Adriana Torres, 41, told The Post Thursday, about emerging from the coma to meet daughter Leah. “It was very difficult because I didn’t get to see her for another week. But to see her was the best thing that could’ve happened at that moment. It was the best medicine I needed, that my body needed.”
Torres was six months pregnant when she was rushed to NYU Winthrop Hospital with severe COVID-19 symptoms on April 5.
“I was very, very, very sick when I went to the hospital,” she said in Spanish. “I had a strong cough, I was six-months pregnant, more than six months pregnant, and I couldn’t breathe.”
With her condition worsening, doctors at the hospital sedated Torres and place her in a medically induced coma.
“We were trying to optimize her respiratory condition as long as we could, to prolong her pregnancy, but her oxygen level started deteriorating,” said Dr. Patricia Rekawek, lead physician on the Winthrop team that treated Torres.
“It was a very difficult decision, but we determined that the best thing was to deliver the baby, to reduce the oxygen demands on the mother, so that the ICU could better optimize her care,” Rekawek said. “The C-section was uncomplicated.”
Baby Leah was born prematurely at 29 weeks on April 8, weighing in at 2 pounds, 15 ounces.
Torres’ breathing improved, and doctors began to reduce her sedation to try to bring her out of the coma — which she did on her 41st birthday April 10.
“I was very confused,” she said. “It’s not easy when they tell you it’s your birthday. I didn’t know where I was. They showed me photos of my family, of my daughter. It was very sad because it’s not easy to be alone in the hospital.”
Her room had been lined with birthday cards and birthday greetings, but it would take another week before she was able to hold baby Leah, who tested negative for the coronavirus, hospital officials said.
Torres was released from the hospital on Saturday but remains in quarantine at home — and has not been able to see Leah again for fear she’ll spread the deadly bug.
“It’s super difficult, but what can I do? She’s in an incubator,” she said. “I have to put up with all this to get better for her and for my family.”
The home isolation has proven difficult for her other children, particularly her 3-year-old daughter, Allison, who she hasn’t been able to hold while quarantined in the family home in Hempstead.
“I hear her,” Torres said. “That’s very difficult for me, to hear her through the door, ‘Mommy, I love you. Mommy, I want you to come out.’ But I know I know I have to do this to keep them safe.”
She also has a 22-year-old daughter named Michelle, she said.
As for Leah, Torres dreams of the day when her little girl can come home and the family is reunited.
“I know that she’s in good hands,” she said. “I know they’ll take care of her and keep her safe.”