Stormy Robison: The Joy of the Unexpected
One day during work, Stormy Robison started to think she might be pregnant.
Although she typically skipped breakfast, she was so hungry that she ordered two entrees from Big Bad Breakfast to be delivered to her work. When one of her coworkers asked if she could be pregnant, Stormy almost dismissed the thought.
“My period has always been irregular, and I was kind of late, but I hadn’t thought anything of it,” she said. “Then I started to think, ‘Well, it is kind of weird that I’m so hungry.’”
A couple of days later, she got sick from the smell of her morning coffee. That weekend, she visited her boyfriend John Thomas Davis in Cleveland, Miss., and told him she was taking a pregnancy test.
“When I saw that the pregnancy test showed two pink lines, I was just filled with the most joy—a wave of joy. It was almost out of body, like I was watching it happen from another perspective,” said Stormy.
She ran right over to John Thomas and told him the test was positive. “It was such an exciting, raw, adrenaline-rushed feeling. It didn’t even occur to me to do some sort of special reveal like you see on social media, but I’m glad I didn’t,” she said. “I was so present for that moment. It’s seared into my brain.”
Navigating a New Pregnancy
At the time, Stormy and John Thomas were dating long distance. Stormy was working as a hygienist in Nashville while John Thomas was an aerial applicator in Cleveland. When they found out she was expecting, she moved to Cleveland in a matter of weeks.
She started prenatal care with Dr. Samuel Cole at Oxford Clinic for Women despite the drive being two hours, after a recommendation from her sister-in-law. “My sister-in-law loved going there and gave all the best reviews, so I was like, ‘That’s where we’ll go then.’”
Even though Stormy was excited to be pregnant, she was sick nearly the entire time. “You see in the movies the glowing mother who’s just having the time of her life, sitting in her nursery with her big pregnant belly. It was not like that for me,” she laughed. “It was hard for me to eat. I just had a really rough go with being pregnant.”
Everyone told her that once she passed the first trimester, the nausea would go away. Unfortunately for Stormy, it didn’t.
“Thankfully, Dr. Cole was very attuned to my needs. He prescribed me B6 and Unisom, and I’m telling you when I started taking that, I felt like a new person,” she said. With the help of the medicine, she could eat and even sleep some. She started gaining pregnancy weight and finally had energy to live her life.
The most exciting part of her pregnancy came when she found out that she was pregnant with a boy. She had hoped to have a boy, but something kept telling her it was going to be a girl.
“I had a whole list of girl names picked out, and I hadn’t picked out one single boy name,” she said.
At their gender reveal, John Thomas’ boss flew an airplane over the heads of friends and family. At just the right moment, the airplane sprayed out water that had been dyed blue for a boy.
“John Thomas was so excited, and I was in shock,” she said. “You know, we would be happy with a boy or a girl, but I think the fact that I was so dead set on it being a girl, even though I hoped to be a boy mom, it just made the experience even better.”
Childbirth at Baptist Memorial
Because Stormy was commuting from Cleveland to Oxford for prenatal care, there was some uncertainty to what labor might look like. Would they be able to drive two hours to Baptist Memorial during active labor? What if John Thomas was flying on a job far away? The couple made a lot of plans.
In the end, Stormy was induced on April 26th, the day after John Thomas’ birthday. “We had a big cookout for his birthday, and then we went straight to bed, so we could get up at 3:30 in the morning to drive to Oxford,” she said.
“I remember saying that I was going to sleep in the truck on the way there, but we were wide awake the whole time, just talking about what was going to happen. It’s something I’ll never forget—the excitement and not knowing what would happen, but still knowing what would come at the end of it.”
Stormy’s Plan A for childbirth was an all-natural labor, but she knew she’d be fine with taking an epidural if it came to that. Once the contractions began, she changed her mind—she wanted the epidural.
Then the plan changed again. “The epidural just did not work,” Stormy said, laughing.
“It might have just been God’s plan. Honestly, looking back, it really did hurt, but I would do it a thousand times and take all the pain to have this boy. I would do it in a heartbeat.”
Labor was not quick. Her baby’s shoulder was stuck, so the medical staff were having a hard time getting him through the canal. “I could feel everything,” she added.
For hours, the nurses held Stormy’s hand and encouraged her while John Thomas made sure she stayed cool with constant fanning. “The nurses were angels. I don’t know that I could have done it without them—so amazing, wonderful and supportive,” she said.
For expecting mothers concerned about childbirth, Stormy underscored the importance of trusting your body. “Your body knows what to do. Your body’s just going to do it,” she said.
“Trust the staff and doctors. They know what they’re doing. They do it everyday. If something was to go wrong, Dr. Cole was there, and I trusted him.”
When her baby John Taylor was born, Stormy collapsed back into bed from exhaustion. After pushing every minute and a half for hours, she could barely move. Someone held her son up to her face, so she could see him.
“I remember just putting my hands on his face and his cheeks and saying, ‘I’m so proud. You did it. I love you,’” she said. “I remember seeing his little face when they held him up to me. It was the craziest experience, and it brought me so much joy and happiness.
“I looked into his little eyes, and it’s almost like you can’t process it at the moment. It takes time to process what actually happened. You have a whole little human right here that just came out of you.”
Watching John Thomas meet his son for the first time was emotional. She didn’t think she could love him more, but as soon as he went into “dad-mode,” she said she fell deeper in love with him. “He’s so good with John Taylor,” she gushed. “He’s perfect with him.”
Newborn Care & Family Support
The first few newborn days, it was just the three of them together. Stormy joked that she and her boyfriend just stared at their son for 48 hours straight. They couldn’t look away.
When John Thomas went back to work, Stormy’s mom came and helped. “We’re very supported by both sides of our family,” she said. “We’re lucky in that way. I’m so lucky to have John Thomas’ mom and sisters and my whole family to help us get through it.”
Being a mom feels exactly right to Stormy. “I had a whole life before—my whole 20s—to just do whatever I wanted to, and now it’s hard to think that I had all that time without John Taylor.”
Stormy has always wanted to be a mom. Though she knows she has more to learn, she’s confident in herself and trusts her intuition. “Maybe it’s because pregnancy was so rough that this almost feels like a breeze,” she said, laughing. “I know that’s not everyone’s experience.”
Even though she’s so happy as a mom, Stormy has still had challenges. Breastfeeding, though she was committed to it, didn’t work out, due to a bad latch. Now she exclusively pumps every two hours around the clock.
“That’ll take a toll on you, for sure, especially if you want to get out of the house and go somewhere,” she said. “You’re on this time clock once you step out of the door, or else you’re going to be in pain. Trying to adjust to that schedule has been the hardest part so far.”
Through all of the challenges, the journey of becoming a mom has been incredible. “After I gave birth, I remember feeling so powerful,” Stormy said. “I had just felt all this pain and made it through, and this is what I got out of it.
“I have a new perspective on all moms, whether they gave birth naturally, with an epidural, or had a C-section, because it doesn’t matter how you do it. It’s hard regardless. It is truly amazing what our bodies do, and you just have no clue until you go through it, and then, it’s like this whole new world opens up.”
Photos by Meg Buchanan Photography
