While she now feels blessed to be a mother to a perfect daughter, the 'Real Housewives of Atlanta' alum admits the pregnancy was not easy with every dreadful doctor visit.
- Dec 13, 2018
AceShowbiz - Kenya Moore has proudly shown her daughter's face for the first time after welcoming the baby on November 4. The first-time mom and her little girl Brooklyn Doris, who are clad in matching white outfits, pose for the latest issue of People magazine.
In an interview with the tabloid, the former cast member of "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" gushes about her daughter, "I finally have everything I've dreamed of." She adds, "She's so perfect in so many ways." Kenya adds that Brooklyn "makes 101 faces" that always make her laugh. "This little angel ... so beautiful. I feel so blessed. It's all been so worth it," she fondly says of her daughter.
Meet Brooklyn Doris — and Mommy Moore! #RHOA alum @KenyaMoore introduces @people to her daughter for the first time — and details those "scary" pregnancy complications along the way. https://t.co/4p02UWF0j3pic.twitter.com/vNCYHy1gOg
— Dave Quinn (@NineDaves) December 12, 2018
While her journey has a "beautiful" ending, Kenya has previously revealed her struggle to conceive. She and her husband Marc Daly began in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment at a clinic in Barbados to start a family after they got married in June 2017. When she finally got pregnant, Kenya reveals, "There were so many scares along the way."
One of those scary moments was when doctors couldn't see the baby's skeleton at her first ultrasound which could mean that she had a false pregnancy. During another visit, physicians were concerned Kenya was having an ectopic tubal pregnancy which would need to be terminated. Kenya, who was seeing an OBGYN and perinatologist (a specialist for high-risk pregnancy) weekly, recalls the dreadful moments, "We held our breath every time we went to the doctor."
Later in October, Kenya noticed her feet were swollen, but initially joked, "Okay pregnant women, their feet swell!" When she visited her OBGYN, she realized there's something wrong after she learned that she had gained 17 lbs. in one week. She tested positive for preeclampsia, a condition marked by extreme fluid retention and high blood pressure that can lead to serious, even fatal complications.
After a number of tests, doctors decided that she had to deliver the baby right away. Without Marc by her side as he was still on his way back to Atlanta, Kenya remembers she burst into tears. "It was all happening so fast," she shares. "I started crying because I got so scared. I couldn't get a hold of Marc, I didn't know what was going to happen. I just remember feeling overwhelmed with emotion. It was really tough."
Her emergency cesarean section lasted three hours and at one point her epidural ran out, so doctors gave her anesthesia to put her to sleep. Marc, who thankfully arrived in time, was in the delivery room by her side. She was cut twice, horizontally and vertically, because fibroids blocked the baby's way out.
"They couldn't get the baby out," she says. "There were all these complications and they knew if they cut into a fibroid, I could potentially bleed out and die. So they ended up cutting me vertically too, to just get the baby out and make sure I survived the surgery. They were so scared they were going to lose me."
After she went through the scariest moment, her doctor jokingly suggested to her, "This was one for the books." And Kenya says the journey was all worth it when she touched her baby for the first time. She recalls, "They laid her down on my chest, and those screaming cries stopped immediately. She was just so perfect, so tiny. And just like that, all my dreams had come true."
Summarizing her tough pregnancy, the 47-year-old reality TV star says, "Everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. But she's such a tough baby; so determined. And every step of the way, she kept surviving and getting stronger. She's my miracle baby. There's no other way to describe it, she's my miracle baby."
