Woman gives birth while in coma, awakens after St. John Paul II appears to her

Rebecca Maria was born at 32 weeks gestation on March 16, 2013, in Catania (on the island of Sicily). It sounds like ordinary news -- one of the many premature births that are successful thanks to the progress of science and the hard work of doctors and nurses.

Instead, the story of this birth, reported in Vita da Mamma and more in depth in Miracoli magazine, is unusual.

Mrs. Ivana Greco, 33 years old at the time and already the mother of a girl named Giuditta, was peacefully carrying her second pregnancy when she was struck by a cerebral hemorrhage. At the moment of admission to the Intensive Care Unit of the Garibaldi Hospital, she was already in a coma.

A double problem arose with extreme urgency: to save the woman and to help Rebecca Maria be born as soon as possible. The head of the department was obliged to handle this birth under extreme conditions. Two days after Greco was brought to the hospital, she underwent a c-section. The result was the birth of a healthy baby girl weighing 3 pounds and 6 ounces, who was immediately transferred to the neonatology ward.

But Ivana was still in a potentially life-threatening clinical situation. This is how she recounts her incredible experience to Miracoli magazine:

That smile had famously invited the whole world not to fear: "Do not be afraid. Open wide the doors for Christ!" Ivana also feared nothing supported by the pope's love.

The "dream" continued with a conversation between the two of them, in which the Holy Father, who was not dressed in white, asked her if she had recognized him. When she told him she had, he pointed out that he was no longer the pope, but only Karol Wojtyla.

In all of this there is also the funny detail that Ivana couldn’t remember the name of the current pope (recently elected at the time). She told Wojtyla that the new pope’s name was Alexander, but he corrected her and gave the correct name of Francis.

Ivana continues her story:

At that point, on March 29,  Ivana came out of the coma and realized with horror that her womb was empty. “It was the worst experience of my life!” she told Miracoli.

Immediately afterwards, the head physician, who was beside her, reassured her and showed her the photos that her husband Paolo had taken of Rebecca in the incubator. Seeing these images, Ivana's heart was full of gratitude and she felt that she had experienced something supernatural. “I understood that I had received the divine breath of Jesus. It was He who made me wake up. Then the doctors continued God’s work.”

God's work did not end with Rebecca being born safe and sound, but continued with the absolute absence of brain damage for Ivana, who today happily takes care of her two girls, whom she entrusts to the protection of Karol Wojtyla.

The mother is also grateful for the work of the doctors, whose work was essential. In a video interview made as she left the hospital, she says, “There was the human and the divine, which together form a miracle.”