Lucy's Birth Story
Lucy Jane Parker was born at home on January 18, 2011 at
3:00 am at 39 weeks, 5 days gestation. She weighed 7 pounds, 12 ounces and was
21 inches long. This is the story of my pregnancy and birth.
Pre-conception and planning:
It took a little nudging and convincing, but by the end of 2009, my husband Rick was on board with adding to our family of four. We worked through all of the “how will this work and where will baby eat, sleep, ride, etc.” reservations that he had and were excited to start planning for baby number three. Both of my prior pregnancies had been achieved in one cycle of trying to conceive, so while I hoped for another quick conception, I knew that at 36+ and still breastfeeding it could be more of a challenge this time around.
After four unsuccessful cycles, a conviction that I was infertile, and a mad obsession with peeing on sticks, I got a very, very faint line on a test. It was early on the morning of May 10, 2010 right before we left for the airport to spend a few days in NYC celebrating Rick’s graduation from grad school and our 10th anniversary. I was only 11 days past my ovulation date. So it was still early for testing, and I was using an OPK as a HPT, and the line on the stick was the faintest of faint, pretty much invisible in regular lighting, and took more than 5 minutes to show up. With those factors at play, I figured it was an evaporation line like I had been crushed by previously in similar circumstances. So I packed with the expectation of AF arriving and tried to push disappointment out of mind for the trip.
Pre-conception and planning:
It took a little nudging and convincing, but by the end of 2009, my husband Rick was on board with adding to our family of four. We worked through all of the “how will this work and where will baby eat, sleep, ride, etc.” reservations that he had and were excited to start planning for baby number three. Both of my prior pregnancies had been achieved in one cycle of trying to conceive, so while I hoped for another quick conception, I knew that at 36+ and still breastfeeding it could be more of a challenge this time around.
After four unsuccessful cycles, a conviction that I was infertile, and a mad obsession with peeing on sticks, I got a very, very faint line on a test. It was early on the morning of May 10, 2010 right before we left for the airport to spend a few days in NYC celebrating Rick’s graduation from grad school and our 10th anniversary. I was only 11 days past my ovulation date. So it was still early for testing, and I was using an OPK as a HPT, and the line on the stick was the faintest of faint, pretty much invisible in regular lighting, and took more than 5 minutes to show up. With those factors at play, I figured it was an evaporation line like I had been crushed by previously in similar circumstances. So I packed with the expectation of AF arriving and tried to push disappointment out of mind for the trip.
We had a wonderful getaway to New York. I felt a little
tired during the trip, but I chalked it up to not sleeping well in a hotel bed.
I considered buying a HPT at a drugstore several times, but I didn’t want to risk
a negative result bringing us down on our trip.
Times Square: 12 DPO
BFP:
Within an hour or so of arriving back at our house on the evening of May 12th, I peed on a stick and got a faint but not too faint second line. I was elated! I wanted to scream and dance and shout to the world, but I had to be discreet because my mom was still at our house since she had stayed with Lila and Nellie and the dogs while we were away. I snapped a photo of the test and sent it to Rick with the subject “Happy Anniversary!” I went downstairs for the reveal, and of course, Rick looked dubiously at it and expressed doubt that there was indeed a second line. It was a momentary buzz kill, but I had much, much more experience reading tests than he did, and I knew it was positive, and I knew I would pee on many more sticks to prove it to him!
The next few days were a roller coaster. I would get a
negative test followed by a faint positive test followed by a negative test the
next day. I grieved that it was a chemical pregnancy and was crushed over the
loss. I was devastated. I needed to see a line getting steadily darker each day
to assure me that everything was progressing well. That just wasn’t happening
and some tests were negative, so I just knew that meant that it wasn’t viable,
and I was heartbroken.
I went to my friend Kathy’s house on May 14 and took two tests with a fellow expert pregnancy tester to witness. They were still faint but evident enough to finally convince Rick that I was at least momentarily pregnant.
I went to my friend Kathy’s house on May 14 and took two tests with a fellow expert pregnancy tester to witness. They were still faint but evident enough to finally convince Rick that I was at least momentarily pregnant.
I continued to
test every day but never getting the bold, dark result I wanted but also not
having any signs of my period or miscarriage. A glimmer of hope remained
despite feeling quite certain it would all end soon. On May 20 (22 days past
ovulation) after using at least a dozen cheap dollar store, OPK sticks, and
drugstore tests, I decided to buy a digital test. I was terrified of seeing the
words “Not Pregnant” and hesitant to spend fifteen dollars to have my heart
broken, but I overcame my inner cheapskate and made the purchase hoping to find
peace a la Clearblue Easy.
Within seconds, that beautiful word popped up on the screen,
“Pregnant!” Finally! I could let myself believe that maybe, just maybe, I was
going to have a baby. Of course, I also pried open the test cartridge to
analyze the color of the lines on the strip inside the test. Dark enough to satisfy
me! After 2 weeks of testing, I could finally stop peeing on sticks. I never
even used the second test in the box, a huge show of restraint for an obsessive
stick pee-er! For reference on how crazy I had become: When I was pregnant with
Lila, I was cool and confident and used one, single Dollar Tree test. That was
it! By baby #3, I was a crazed, obsessive maniac full of doom and gloom.
Pregnancy:
I never experienced any morning sickness, nausea, or food aversions during the pregnancy. My body felt great, but my head was a wreck. I spent months expecting to miscarry. The lack of morning sickness only added to my fears. I saw my friend Janet, a nurse midwife at a nearby OB office, for my initial lab work at around 8 weeks. After talking to her about my anxiety, she suggested a quick ultrasound to see the heartbeat. The tech picked up the heartbeat quickly, and tears of joy overcame me. A real, live baby! She also took a couple of measurements which I didn’t want. I only wanted to see a heartbeat. She kept double checking the due date on my chart with her measurement and then re-measuring. She kept bumping her measurements up, but they were still about 5 days behind my calculated due date which I knew to be rock solid and accurate, so of course, this sent me back into my spiral of gloom. I knew the date discrepancy was within the range of normal, and Janet tried her best to talk me down, but I still expected that since baby was measuring small, it probably wasn’t a viable pregnancy. After my last crazy pregnancy where ultrasound results had caused great distress and changed my birth plans, I had decided to not have any more ultrasounds, yet here I was once again with more ultrasound induced stress!
I never experienced any morning sickness, nausea, or food aversions during the pregnancy. My body felt great, but my head was a wreck. I spent months expecting to miscarry. The lack of morning sickness only added to my fears. I saw my friend Janet, a nurse midwife at a nearby OB office, for my initial lab work at around 8 weeks. After talking to her about my anxiety, she suggested a quick ultrasound to see the heartbeat. The tech picked up the heartbeat quickly, and tears of joy overcame me. A real, live baby! She also took a couple of measurements which I didn’t want. I only wanted to see a heartbeat. She kept double checking the due date on my chart with her measurement and then re-measuring. She kept bumping her measurements up, but they were still about 5 days behind my calculated due date which I knew to be rock solid and accurate, so of course, this sent me back into my spiral of gloom. I knew the date discrepancy was within the range of normal, and Janet tried her best to talk me down, but I still expected that since baby was measuring small, it probably wasn’t a viable pregnancy. After my last crazy pregnancy where ultrasound results had caused great distress and changed my birth plans, I had decided to not have any more ultrasounds, yet here I was once again with more ultrasound induced stress!
Janet knew I was planning another homebirth and told me I could come back at the end of the pregnancy if I wanted to do the GBS test or any other lab work but that I didn’t need to see her again. When I was around 12 weeks, I finally felt confident enough in the viability of the pregnancy to contact my midwives Claudia and Debbie to let them know I was pregnant and to begin care for my third homebirth! I discussed the care plan with Claudia at my first prenatal appointment, and she felt like due to the current homebirth politics that I should see Janet more regularly or not at all in order to stay off the radar of the (not homebirth friendly) OB at Janet’s office. I had no interest in dragging Lila and Nellie to regular office visits with two providers, but I wanted to have a back-up care giver since my last birth plan had gone awry.
Hilton Head Island: 18 weeks
During my first pregnancy, I was a brave, trusting, birthing
warrior. I had no back-up plan, no ultrasounds and plenty of confidence that my
birth would go smoothly and that the baby would be healthy. Somewhere along the
way after that easy birth at home that went according to plan, I lost my birth
warrior status. It may have been the PTSD from getting deathly sick after my
first birth or having placenta previa with my second, but I was scared and felt
the universe owed me a bad outcome after two great births and two healthy
babies. I often ponder this and sometimes think that my change in confidence
was part of becoming a mother. From the moment I held my first baby in my arms
and felt that overwhelming, life-changing, infinite love, I appreciated the
fragility of life on a whole new level, and it terrified me. I was also haunted
by chilling words a psychic had given me during a ten dollar palm reading back
in 1999. She had told me that I would have three pregnancies and two children,
and her words were seared in my mind.
So the pregnancy continued with my head full with fear, doubt, and worry. However, my body felt great, and it was by far my easiest pregnancy physically. I so wish I could have enjoyed my symptom-free pregnancy! I continued to get prenatal care with Claudia and went back for another visit with Janet at around 24 weeks. Instead of Janet, the other midwife in the practice Kay was in the office that day, and she was not thrilled at my sporadic visits, so I started going on a more routine but spaced out schedule to appease everyone. But no 20 week ultrasound to stress me out!
So the pregnancy continued with my head full with fear, doubt, and worry. However, my body felt great, and it was by far my easiest pregnancy physically. I so wish I could have enjoyed my symptom-free pregnancy! I continued to get prenatal care with Claudia and went back for another visit with Janet at around 24 weeks. Instead of Janet, the other midwife in the practice Kay was in the office that day, and she was not thrilled at my sporadic visits, so I started going on a more routine but spaced out schedule to appease everyone. But no 20 week ultrasound to stress me out!
Third Trimester:
The pregnancy progressed smoothly. In late November at around 31 weeks, I started having regular contractions, not labor contractions but more than intense than Braxton Hicks contractions. They were especially bad when I walked. Anything that required me to walk more than a short distance caused them to be pretty intense. I started shuffling around to try and keep them at bay. I continued to get regular chiropractic care to ensure that everything was well-aligned, diagnosed myself with irritable uterus, and carried on with life the best that I could. I frequently had to stop and breathe through them and spend time on my side drinking water, but they never resulted in any changes to my cervix. At a couple of prenatal appointments, my urine dipstick showed trace red blood cells, and a few days before labor kicked in, I was stricken with a raging UTI where I went from feeling fine to peeing bright red blood and having stabbing back pain within a couple of hours. Looking back and later learning that a UTI can cause contractions, my guess is that the UTI had been brewing asymptomatically for several weeks and was the underlying cause of the contractions all that time.
The pregnancy progressed smoothly. In late November at around 31 weeks, I started having regular contractions, not labor contractions but more than intense than Braxton Hicks contractions. They were especially bad when I walked. Anything that required me to walk more than a short distance caused them to be pretty intense. I started shuffling around to try and keep them at bay. I continued to get regular chiropractic care to ensure that everything was well-aligned, diagnosed myself with irritable uterus, and carried on with life the best that I could. I frequently had to stop and breathe through them and spend time on my side drinking water, but they never resulted in any changes to my cervix. At a couple of prenatal appointments, my urine dipstick showed trace red blood cells, and a few days before labor kicked in, I was stricken with a raging UTI where I went from feeling fine to peeing bright red blood and having stabbing back pain within a couple of hours. Looking back and later learning that a UTI can cause contractions, my guess is that the UTI had been brewing asymptomatically for several weeks and was the underlying cause of the contractions all that time.
We traveled to my parents’ house in Tennessee for Christmas.
I was slightly nervous to leave the state at 36 weeks pregnant while having
regular contractions, but Christmas at Goggy and Papa’s house is the biggest
deal in the world to Lila and Nellie, so we weren’t missing it! We could just
have the baby at my mom’s house! On Christmas night, the contractions got more
intense, and I tried to check my cervix. I was unsuccessful but was certain
that I had felt something in there that shouldn’t be there: a bulge or a tumor
or a fistula or rectocele or something truly awful.
Christmas Day at my parents' house: 36 weeks
We arrived back in Atlanta
the day after Christmas and Claudia came for a prenatal appointment on the 28th.
I insisted she do an internal exam to check on the horrible bulgy thing. She
assured me that my anatomy was perfectly normal, I wasn’t dilated a bit, and
all was well. What was that bulgy thing? A baby! I guess they protrude a little
by the time 36 weeks rolls around.
December 30 was Nellie’s third birthday, and we had a party
at a local park. Thankfully, I was able to bake and decorate and party with
very few contractions. I even ran a short distance at the party, and the baby
didn’t fall out! It was a great day, and I was technically full term, and my sweet
Nellie baby was now a great big three-year old and almost a big sister.
Nellie's birthday: 37 weeks
The first week of 2011 was uneventful. Now that Christmas and
Nellie’s birthday had passed, and the New Year was here, I could think about giving
birth to a baby. A living, breathing, healthy baby! I was ready to get ready.
Finally. I’m a world-class procrastinator; so of course, I didn’t pull out the
baby gear until the ninth month!
My dear friends held a Mother Blessing for me on January 8. It was laid-back, low-key and celebratory and exactly what I needed to put me in the right frame of mind. I’m so lucky to have such a wonderful, supportive network of friends that understand my craziness and quirkiness and love me anyway.
My dear friends held a Mother Blessing for me on January 8. It was laid-back, low-key and celebratory and exactly what I needed to put me in the right frame of mind. I’m so lucky to have such a wonderful, supportive network of friends that understand my craziness and quirkiness and love me anyway.
Mother Blessing: 38 weeks
I didn’t do much in the way of labor preparation during the pregnancy. I figured I had it down by this point and knew what works for me and what doesn’t, and I just kind of wing it as it comes anyway. But on January 9, I watched the film, “Orgasmic Birth” thinking I could use it to check off a mental box for labor/birth prep. Oh, how I hated this movie! It was just not my thing at all. I was grouchy and very pregnant, and I hated the stupid way this one particular woman would smile during her contractions. It was just a giant, ecstatic, annoying, drunk, smile. I have no idea why it was so irritating to me, but it really struck a nerve.
January 10 brought snow. Lots and lots of snow. The city of
Atlanta shut down for three days as I was winding down week 39. The roads were
a mess, but since the midwife drives a 4WD, I let myself believe that she would
be able to make it if labor started while we were still buried under snow. On
January 13, the snow was starting to melt and roads were becoming passable. That
morning, I started having mild, regular contractions, so we got excited and did
a few last minute baby prep and birth planning tasks. Then the contractions
fizzled out and Rick went into work for a half day.
Snowed in: 38.5 weeks
Last minute preparations: fluffing up the diapers!
I attended a belly mapping workshop with the lady from Spinning Babies on
Friday, January 14th. Traffic was horrendous because of the remaining
snow, and it took me two hours to get to the workshop, and I began to worry
that I might have the baby while stuck in gridlocked traffic. It was fun to map
the baby’s position, and have it painted on my belly, and the OB hosting the
event did a quick ultrasound to verify that our palpating was accurate. They
were careful to avoid revealing the baby’s sex, and I got to see the 3D view of
the baby’s face. It was the sweetest little squishy face in the world, and I
became even more impatient to be able to finally meet this little one.
Mapping of baby's position: 39 weeks
Labor begins:
I went to bed on January 17 at around 11:00pm. A few minutes later, I felt a contraction. I grabbed my phone and started the Contraction Master app to time the next one. The contraction lasted about forty-five seconds and the next one was only two minutes later. Here we go! In three labors, I’ve never experienced those early, widely-spaced contractions that get longer and closer together during active labor. All three have started with contractions less than five minutes apart. That makes it confusing to judge the progression of labor and which is why, baby #2 was almost an unassisted birth. This time Claudia had instructed me to call her at the very first sign of labor since we expected this to be another fast one, so I gave her the heads up and she said she would pack up and head our way. I called my friend and photographer Monique to head over too.
I went to bed on January 17 at around 11:00pm. A few minutes later, I felt a contraction. I grabbed my phone and started the Contraction Master app to time the next one. The contraction lasted about forty-five seconds and the next one was only two minutes later. Here we go! In three labors, I’ve never experienced those early, widely-spaced contractions that get longer and closer together during active labor. All three have started with contractions less than five minutes apart. That makes it confusing to judge the progression of labor and which is why, baby #2 was almost an unassisted birth. This time Claudia had instructed me to call her at the very first sign of labor since we expected this to be another fast one, so I gave her the heads up and she said she would pack up and head our way. I called my friend and photographer Monique to head over too.
Whiny stage of labor
I got in the pool at 2:15 and oh, what sweet relief. It was warm and cushy and weightless and glorious. I became silent at this point. I tried sitting for a while, but settled on hands and knees resting my elbows on the edge of the pool. Then I felt my face doing that giant, stupid smile like the lady on the “Orgasmic Birth” video. I’m sure I would have been very annoyed with myself if I could have gotten back into my head and analyzed the event, but I was in the zone and silent and “the smile” just involuntarily plastered itself across my face with every contraction.
The smile worked so well that I never vocalized or gave any of those telltale grunty sounds that you hear when it’s time to push. Maybe it was sphincter law. I don’t know, but I was just easing my baby down and out in complete silence while smiling like
A few minutes before birth: deep in the zone
Everyone jumped into action. Rick went to wake Lila up, and she came into the bathroom all groggy but excited to meet her new sibling.
Within moments I was giving the final push and right as the baby was coming out at exactly 3:00am, I noticed that the Indigo Girls were singing “Love Will Come to You.” It was surreal and magical to hear the words, “Where there's now one there will be two…” as my baby came sliding out into the water.
I was still on hands and knees so Claudia laid the baby on my back and Rick announced that she was a girl. I was so flooded with emotion. I sobbed and was so, so thrilled to have baby girl #3. I didn't feel like I had a boy/girl preference during pregnancy, but apparently I did! I was overwhelmed at the sweetness of having three little girls. Perfection!
Claudia helped me turn over and do around-the-cord gymnastics to get in position to put the baby to breast and wait for the placenta. We basked in that afterglow that is just so unlike anything in the world. The work of labor is done and the most wondrous prize in the universe is in your arms. So intoxicating and miraculous.
Once the placenta was out, Lila got to cut the cord.
Then I got out of the pool full
of birth soup and showered off and donned the mesh undies and snuggled into bed
with my perfect, gorgeous baby girl that smelled like angels had just kissed
her. I was so smitten and in awe of her perfection and her realness and that
she was mine and that she made it here safe and sound and hallelujah and praise
to all the forces of all the spheres that ushered her here into my heart. Glory
to all the things! My baby girl. My perfect, delicious baby girl. There are
just no apt words for that love that knocks you into another dimension.
We cuddled and nursed and Monique snapped a few more shots then went home to
grab a little sleep before her girls got up. Rick put Lila back to sleep for a few hours. Claudia and Kim did the mom and
baby exams and wrap-up stuff and left a bit later. Except for a completely
obliterated amniotic sac that was in tatters (I ended up passing pieces of it
for weeks. Weird.), everything checked out perfectly.
My dear Claudia has been at my side for all three of my births. I love her so much.
By 6:00am, that ferocious
post-partum hunger had struck, so Rick ran out to grab me a spicy chicken
biscuit because even though I had never tasted one before, that was the only
food I could imagine eating. I never experienced pregnancy cravings, but I have
had very specific cravings after all three births.
Rick and I discussed our final contender baby names and settled quickly on Lucy Jane - family names from each of our families. We called our parents and siblings and announced our new baby girl. My parents immediately packed up and drove in from Tennessee. Nellie woke up and got to meet her baby sister for the first time, and Lila was so excited to hold her again. My sister Miriam and my nephew Ewan came over, and my parents arrived around noon, and everyone got to meet the fabulous Lucy Jane and celebrate her birth day with us.
Later in the evening, I realized that we had forgotten to have a birthday cake for our celebration (a birthing day tradition in our family), so I sent my dad out to fetch a cake. I told him to get something small and suggested he buy a pretty little 6-inch cake from the bakery case at Kroger. He came back with half of a bundt cake which was ridiculous, and my hormonal reaction and sorrow over it was even more ridiculous. A miniature bundt cake would have been fine, but why do they even sell half of a cake? It was tragic in my mind. I kept trying to take photos at an angle where you couldn’t tell it was a half cake. Thankfully, in hindsight, I adore the weirdness of it, and it makes me laugh because it is SO my dad and half of a cake is so absurd and that suits us just perfectly.
My parents left the next morning and took Lila and Nellie back to Tennessee
with them for a few days. I was sad to split up our family so soon, but both
girls had colds, and I was having a lot of anxiety and germaphobia with their coughing and sneezing on the baby. It worked out nicely and gave me a few days to
babymoon alone quietly with Lucy Jane and physically recover from birth.
As I replayed the birth in my head over the next few days, I kept returning to Claudia's Facebook post describing it from her perspective. I read it over and over dozens of times. She writes about the births she attends with such reverence. It is so special to have those words from her as part of the story of Lucy's birth.
Despite the beauty and ease of birth, my postpartum recovery was unprecedentedly difficult. My OCD and anxiety worsened in the days and weeks following birth. It had been so bad during pregnancy that I couldn't have fathomed that the darkness could become darker. I counsel postpartum moms routinely but couldn't see through the haze to assess my own situation. Thankfully, after desperately trying to reach Janet at the OB office, Kay stepped in and quickly referred me to the Emory Women’s Mental Health Program and their world-class postpartum services.
They were able to get me in quickly for treatment. The program was a lifesaver and helped me to right the balance in my world and get me
to where I could savor and enjoy my baby and our new family dynamic and feel
secure that neither she nor I were going to perish at any moment. Life is so good
now. My blessings are abundant and our love is profound, and I can see it and feel it now and revel
in it. I’m a lucky, lucky mama.
