the sunny side: Lucy Joy

11.08.2014

Lucy Joy

Meet Lucy Joy McCrory. She was born after 19 hours of labor at 4:01 pm on Saturday October 25, 2014. Weighed 7 lbs 10 oz and 18.75 inches long.

I had decided earlier on in pregnancy I wanted to do a natural birth with minimal interventions. I had watched The Business of Being Born which initially peaked my interest and then I read Your Best Birth and Natural Hospital Birth. (Highly recommend Natural Hospital Birth to every pregnant lady no matter what you are wanting to do. I learned so much in that book!) I also hired a Doula=best decision ever. She was amazing.

Back to the birth. I went to my 40 week appointment on Thursday morning and had the Dr do an internal exam. Low and behold I was at 5 cm and 50% effaced! I thought, 'wow! i'm halfway there, this labor shouldn't last very long'. Yeah, good one. Jump ahead to Friday night at 9pm. Thats when things got real. I had just gotten ready for bed and thought I better get some sleep if these are real contractions. The sleep thing didn't pan out. We got out of bed and starting doing some of the coping exercises we had learned in our childbirth class. My go-to ended up being leaning over the back of the couch that had pillows stacked and then rocking side to side. My doula came over at about 3 am. We got to the hospital at 5 am and I was at 7cm. At this point I'm thinking "oh good, it's almost over!" Nope.

The next 11 hours were all a blur. My eyes were pretty much closed the whole time. I was very internal. I remember my mom making conversation with the doula and I finally had enough energy in between one contraction to ask her to stop talking. I needed total silence! I myself was pretty silent the whole time as well. Nothing like the movies, although maybe some people are like that. Duke, my mom and my doula were all taking turns constantly massaging me, holding heat packs on my hips (my hips were where I really felt my contractions), and when I got farther along- holding cold packs on my forehead while I was sweating and shaking uncontrollably. Duke said they probably went through 20 heat packs. The worst part was having to lay on the bed for 20 mins every hour for the intermittent monitoring. It was hard to cope with the pain in that position. My thoughts during the most intense parts of the contractions were "I'm never doing this again", "An epidural would be so nice" and "how have people been doing this for so long?!"

Anyways, I was finalllly at a 10 and was ready to push. I was so completely exhausted at this point, but it was more relief than painful at that point. I pushed for an hour and then she finally was born! My mom said her head popped out, quickly followed by an extended arm, as if she was announcing "I'm here!"

I thought I'd cry when I saw her but honestly I have never been so completely exhausted in my life, I had no energy to cry or do anything but lie there. But I couldn't believe she was here.

It was a crazy, surreal experience. I hope I never forget it. It's so crazy to finally meet the little baby who's been living and squirming around inside you for so long. We love her so much already. And now for picture overload. :)