Lauren’s Law: A Tale Of Three Pregnancies

We celebrated my youngest daughter’s first birthday in February. Naturally, I’m having all of the emotions. I’ll be honest, there’s some relief that the baby phase is starting to come to a close for our family. There’s also an ache that it’s ending. It’s a real conundrum.

To distract myself, I’m remembering my three pregnancies and just how different they were, especially my last. As many of you loyal readers know, the biggest driver for me to write my Lauren’s Law column is to create funny love letters to my three daughters to look back on when they’re older. So here goes.

Firstly, there’s nothing that can prepare you for morning sickness (or all-day sickness) with two active toddlers around. I remember eating apples with my two oldest daughters, then getting sick immediately afterward. My oldest daughter Charlotte opened the bathroom door. She asked, “Where’s my lunch?” Handling food was the last thing I wanted to do at that moment.

Another time that still makes me giggle is grocery shopping while trying not to vomit. At the time, COVID-19 rates were spiking, so I was wearing a mask. Would the mask make it better or worse? Luckily, I didn’t have to find out.

The craziest part of my third pregnancy was the waiting. Charlotte was three days early – a rare experience for most firstborns. Having just wrapped up my full-time job for maternity leave, I was looking forward to a few days off. Charlotte had other plans. True to her personality, she was an early bird.

For my middle daughter, Riley, I was induced at 41 weeks. I was convinced she’d be early like her big sister. Wrong again. Shy, little Riley needed some coaxing.

I was positive our third daughter, Nora, would come early and fast. So I convinced (insisted) my husband to work from home two weeks before her due date because he has an hour commute on low-traffic days.

At 40 weeks, someone’s water broke in our home, but it wasn’t mine. The faucet in our daughters’ bathtub started running and would not stop.

Still pregnant at 41 weeks, I took out one of our bushes while driving Charlotte to school. She yelled, “You’re too close Mommy!” I couldn’t help thinking, “Lady with a baby – coming through!”

The next night, my contractions started and increased quickly. Sadly, it was a false alarm. I’ve never said I was “geriatric” more to see if the doctor would break my water. I was ready to get the show on the road. Alas, I was sent home.

The earliest they could schedule my induction was 41 weeks and three days. The day before, a medical professional called and said, “I’m calling to confirm your surgery for tomorrow.” I replied, “Surgery? Don’t you mean induction?” The woman corrected herself, quickly sharing that my induction could very well be bumped. Perfect.

Later that night, contractions started again. Sure, I was wrong about Scott needing to work from home for three weeks. However, I finally got something right. Nora was born fast – comically fast. I have longer sneezing fits sometimes. All in all, even though my pregnancies got longer each time, I would do it all over again. But thankfully, there are no plans to.

Lauren Burke Meyer is a Severna Park native who was inspired to write Lauren’s Law as a humorous play on the well-known Murphy’s Law adage: “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”