I don’t want to be on Oprah

BEFORE YOU READ THIS YOU NEED TO SCROLL DOWN AND READ "A FAMILY OF 2 BECOMES 3" THEN MAKE YOUR WAY BACK UP TO THIS ONE

I wrote this when I was halfway along in our pregnancy. It is something I have thought about since we have had her…….

Don’t get ahead of yourself. I have had no offers. Just fast forward a year or two from now and this could actually happen. I have crazy pregnancy hormones and in addition to worrying about the normal pregnant women stuff I still worry about some of the in-vitro things. I keep thinking about what if the doctor made a mistake and put my eggs with someone else’s sperm. Karlis said he had to leave his “sample” in the room and just walk out. What if some moron got it and put the wrong name on the cup or whatever it is that they use. You can’t just label each and every sperm like you can so many other things. Or what if the doctor got the wrong embryos too and I am actually carrying a little Chinese baby, someone else’s child. Can you imagine? Mistakes happen every day.
So as you go about your everyday business I am imagining myself sitting in Oprah’s yellowish colored leather guest chair crying my eyes out because I have been given the wrong child.
IVF opens up a whole new world of possibilities. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.

Back to today…So as I sit here and write this and look at her I know she is ours. People say she looks like one of us (which makes me relived that no mistakes were made). She also has this small patch of hair above her left ear that has absolutely no color, it’s completely white. My mom in the past has always told me I had this when I was born. And now she has it too!! It even looks like she is going to have a widow’s peak like me. I love seeing these similarities. I think she has Karlis’s lips and I am hoping she gets his blue eyes. We know they are blue but not sure on what color they will eventually become. She is ours!

OUR LITTLE LIGHTENING BUG

We have been dealing with jaundice since day 2 of Kiyah’s life. There were 3 factors that contributed to her having this. The first was her being premature, the second being that I am breast feeding (since milk comes in late babies aren’t getting nutrients to go to the bathroom often enough at first to eliminate the bilirubin) and lastly because she was stuck banging her head in the birth canal for so long. This caused 2 large hematomas on her head which her body is trying to break down and heal causing more bilirubin. We stayed an extra couple of nights at the hospital so she could stay under the lights and bring down the level. It got to a safe enough level for us to bring her home but now the numbers are stuck in the 14 range. We are to keep an eye on her and make sure she eats plenty and she doesn’t get any more yellow. This is a hard one. We spend the part of everyday asking each other if she looks more yellow. We really never come up with an answer we are comfortable with. We are hoping she will get better soon and we won’t have to worry about this any longer but for now she is a pretty shade of yellow.

The picture below shows how she looked at the hospital. When she was under the lights for her jaundice she had to wear these crazy white looking velcro sunglasses. They stuck the velcro to her head (which sounds so terrible) and when she would come for her feedings they would take the glassess off.

No Name Zirnis

There was no mention of her name in the last post because at that point we didn’t have one. At the hospital we talked everyday about it but couldn’t come to a decision. It was beginning to cause much stress for me and crying about it was becoming normal. The hospital was calling daily saying they needed a name and all the nurses, nurse tech’s, nursery workers, doctors, family, friends, etc. were constantly asking what her name was. The hospital finally said we had one more day then they were sending off her birth certificate that would only state “Zirnis”. One would think that by the time your baby comes you would have a name. We had talked about many and I thought we had it narrowed down. Once she got here though Karlis seemed to have changed his mind on everything we had talked about. For us, we were scared for the entire pregnancy that something would happen. We never called her a name because she would be too real. If something happened it seemed like it would make it harder if we had already named her. I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense but for us it did. Also, it was my wish to have her initials be the same as Karlis’s and mine combined….KMZ. This made naming her even more of a challenge. So finally FOUR long days after we had her we named her Kiyah Mary-Emma Zirnis (KMZ). Kiyah is Latvian for white bird or white seagull, Mary is my first name and the name of many past relatives and Emma was a name that Karlis’s mother liked. I am glad we waited and didn’t name her anything we had discussed previously. Kiyah fits her.

A Family of 2 becomes 3

We welcomed our little girl a little over 2 weeks ago on Sunday, May 24, 2009 (I guess I don’t need to explain my lapse in writing). The birth story is as follows….

Karlis and I had our child birth classes that weekend. My doctor had said I could go as long as I took it easy. We were there most of Saturday and were really glad we went. The most valuable information would be the fact that we found out where to go when labor started, where to park, etc. When the class was over that afternoon our instructor told us we could leave all of our things (pillow, hand-outs, etc.) to the following day. Karlis and I looked at each other at the same time and said we better not. I guess maybe we had a clue what was coming. That night was as normal as any other night; my mom was here that weekend (thank goodness) to help us get the house ready for our little ones arrival. Karlis and I went to bed and I woke up around 1:30 with really bad cramps. Then I felt something warm between my legs. I figured I better go to the bathroom. When I got there I realized I had blood everywhere. Then a large amount of blood hit the bathroom floor. I was just standing there in kind of a panic. I knew it wasn’t normal and was somewhat beginning to fear the worst. I yelled for Karlis to get up and said we had to leave. He looked at the blood and quickly realized we had to move quickly. So we jumped in the car with me sitting on a towel and I called my doctor, which was really a substitute doctor that I had never meet since mine was out of town. She said to not worry (yeah right) it could just be my water broke (yeah right) and to drive slowly (yeah right). Karlis was hoping to see a policeman along the way to escort us in but that didn’t happen. Thank goodness for our big diesel Ford Excursion that feels like the safest car ever. Karlis was doing a little over 100 mph while I sat with my feet on the dash. Contractions were beginning to start but I was so nervous because I couldn’t feel her move. I hadn’t felt her since the night before when I went to bed. We got to the hospital and my doctor came in right behind us. She introduced herself, sat me in a wheelchair, sped down a long hallway and asked if I had any problems with this pregnancy. I don’t even remember what I told her. All I remember asking was could there be something wrong with the baby since I had lost so much blood. She said in a really sympathetic voice “I don’t know yet but we will find out as soon as we can”. So up my panic level 1000%. Karlis was stuck at the sign-in area so he didn’t get to hear this which I am glad. No one should have to hear this. As soon as I got in a labor and delivery room I had nurses all around me. I think there were three or four asking questions quickly, sticking IV’s in (while blowing a couple of veins), putting a catheter in (I DO NOT recommend this without any numbness or pain relief) and cutting off my clothes (thank goodness I was not sleeping in something I really loved). Someone put the fetal heartbeat monitor around my stomach and that’s when we heard it….her heartbeat. My doctor seemed to sigh with relief. She said they would decide what to do once my blood work was back but to go ahead and prepare for a c-section. We waited for about 40 minutes and my labs revealed that the baby looked good and we could try for a natural birth. My doctor recommended this so that is what we did. I got an epidural which went in wrong and my entire right leg went numb. So epidural take two was performed and went much better. I reached 10 cm dilated around 11:30 that morning so it was time to push. I began pushing but couldn’t seem to make any progress. My doctor asked if it would be ok to stop the epidural so I could feel my contractions better and push more efficiently. I said that was fine (big mistake). It took about 3o minutes to wear off. I then pushed for a couple of more hours until the pain got so bad I couldn’t stand it. The baby’s heart beat was becoming stressed at times and I still was not making any progress. It was decided we would have to do a c-section after 3 very long hours of pushing. So the anesthesiologist came to re-administer my epidural medicine and said if I had no relief in 15 minutes to call them again. We waited about 2o minutes and I could still feel everything. So take two once again on epidural medicine. Still didn’t work. Take three on epidural medicine. Finally some relief. So it was time to be taken into the surgery room. The pressure was insane and they had trouble getting her out of my pelvis area. She had made it really far down where she was somewhat stuck. Finally we heard her cry at 3:15 pm. The most joyous sound we have ever heard. I began bleeding so things in the operating room took longer than normal. Karlis got to take her out and show my mom and dad then she made a quick trip to the NICU due to her being almost 4 weeks early. Even though she was that early she weighed 7 lbs 11 ¾ ounces and was 19 inches long. I finally got stapled up and was taken back to our room. Once she was found to be healthy and able to join the other babies in the regular nursery we all moved to a different floor of the hospital. That is where I finally really got to see her. She was so tiny with little curls on her head. Karlis and I were amazed. We had created life albeit in the most unconventional way, we had achieved it. Our dream of parenthood had finally come true…. and she was perfect.