'I Feel Very Lucky:' Queens Woman Beats Odds, Gets Best Mother's Day Gift Of All
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- In what some might call a Mother's Day miracle, a Queens woman beat the odds to have the baby she desperately wanted for years.
Now, she's about to celebrate her first Mother's Day.
Ask any mother and she'll tell you a baby is one of life's biggest blessings, CBS2's Jessica Layton reports.
"I feel very lucky when I look at her," Eva Rivera said.
But for the Forest Hills, Queens woman, Mother's Day is a day she never thought she'd celebrate for herself.
"It means a lot to me that I have my own family now," she said.
In fact, after years of trying to become pregnant, she and her husband, Daniel, had all but given up.
"You know, probably this is best if we stop for a while and maybe wait until I get a transplant," she recalled.
When Rivera started dialysis to treat her kidney disease in October 2015, she knew the odds of conceiving were extremely low. Some studies report a 1.5 percent change, because of the way renal failure affects ovulation.
A few months later, she found out she was pregnant.
"I was thrilled and terrified," she said.
Terrified, she says, because there were so many potential complications for a pregnant woman with her health concerns, as well as diabetes.
"It can lead to some big trouble, like a stroke, heart attack. In women who have kidneys still functioning, the kidneys can fail," Dr. Daniel Skupski said.
Skupski was part of the team of doctors at New York-Presbyterian/Queens that closely monitored mom and baby, encouraging Rivera during her dialysis six days a week.
"Eva was very reliable and committed to have the full term baby. And I think I would give her the credit," Dr. Mourhege Al-Saloum said.
"One of the great success stories," Skupski added. "Everything that we did paid off."
Rivera credits her doctors for bringing her daughter, Iris, into the world and making them a family of three. While she's hopeful to get on a kidney transplant list, for now she says she's "very happy she's here."
She's focused on the Mother's Day gift she never thought she'd get.
Rivera also says she's not sure that her outcome would have been the same if she didn't have access to her team of doctors at New York-Presbyterian/Queens.
Baby Iris will turn one in August.
