Third-time, First-time Parent

They say the third time's a charm...

It was dark and still, two words that typically don’t describe “hospital room.”There were no monitors, no screens, no tubes or wires. Just me and the baby in her plastic baby organizing bin. Alone. 

We entered the hospital before lunchtime and I delivered a baby around cocktail hour. My husband went home to relieve our nanny and attend to our older two children, their worlds about to be both upended and expanded by the presence of their new sister. 

There we were, untethered in the recovery room, together and yet alone. Just me and my full-term baby girl. No glowing red pulse-ox, no leads, no NG tubes, no nasal cannulas. No cribside nurse. No positioning pillows, no snoodles, no light treatment for jaundice, no incubator. No team of residents, fellows, attendings, department heads, respiratory therapists, feeding specialists, PT, OT, speech. Basically no world-class medical team at our beck and call. It was a little unnerving - “where is everyone? I’m it?” Admittedly, I missed the reassurance of knowing the nation’s leading children’s hospital was on hand to co-parent with me. 

My oldest daughter arrived at 29 weeks and two days. She spent two months in the NICU. My son entered the world after 37 weeks and two days of gestation. He was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome and a condition called Hirschsprung’s disease which required surgery at five days old. We spent three weeks in the NICU. 

Two years later, we learned I was pregnant again. An odds-defying occurrence since my ob-gyn inserted an IUD a few months after my son was born. In the harrowing waiting period between blood draws to confirm whether or not I was actually pregnant, I negotiated with God. This conversation occurred on a mid-July morning, the day starting out with that shimmery haze of late summer heat. Walking our dog up the hill, I dialed God up for a chat and laid out my terms. 

“Listen, if this is REAL - if I am really pregnant, then I am taking this baby home, full-term, from the hospital, THE NEXT DAY.” Negotiating is a process, so I held firm and kept reiterating my terms. God’s lawyers sent their answer back exactly 40 weeks and one day later, when we took our baby girl home the day after she was born. 

After a tumultuous experience with my first two, I yearned for something different - for ease. Something “normal,” a nine-month pregnancy and the ability to take the baby immediately home. If I had to describe one of my core character traits in a single word it would be yearn (if you know anything about the Enneagram, I am a 1:1 Four. Totally tracks, right?). In many ways, it’s defined my life, this yearning. When I look up and around at the world it seems so easy for everyone else - I want that, why don’t I have it? 

Logically I know there is no such thing as normal or easy, especially when it comes to pregnancy and delivery. The infinite micro-miracles that must align to bring forth such an experience is more vast than the universe itself. I made it through my first two pregnancies, deliveries, and NICU experiences with what I’d like to think is grit, grace, and fortitude. I have embraced them as part of my story. They expanded me in ways for which I am forever grateful. I am a better person because of it, and I would not trade them, but, geez, can someone throw me an easy bone here? 

So there I was, alone with my third baby. Filled with a sense of relief, vindication, triumph, awe, and “oh sh*t!” It was a weird feeling I didn’t expect. It reminded me of coming home from study-abroad in college - I was ready to come home, so glad to be home, and at the same time not prepared for how much I missed being in Spain. 

So on that March day, after 40 weeks of being pregnant, there I was in an ironic twist of fate, being handed exactly what I asked for and realizing that this experience was not “better” than my other experiences, it was just different. Oh, and there were no experts, just me - a third-time, first-time parent. 

September is NICU Awareness Month designed to honor NICU families and the health professionals who care for them. https://www.nicuawareness.org