Skip to content
Life
Link copied to clipboard

THE PARENT TRIP

Julievette Rivera and Eric Jefferson of Lansdowne

Eric Jefferson holding newborn son Oliver Blaze Jefferson. (JULIEVETTE RIVERA)
Eric Jefferson holding newborn son Oliver Blaze Jefferson. (JULIEVETTE RIVERA)Read more

Her aunt was the only one who knew the answer.

At a "reveal party" when Julievette was six months pregnant - and still in the dark about the baby's sex - 25 guests each picked out a cake pop: a yellow-frosted one if they thought Julievette and her fiance, Eric, would have a girl, or a blue-frosted one if they were banking on a boy.

At the same moment, everyone took a bite: the cake pops were all blue-tinted inside. The guests whooped; Julievette started to cry. Eric remembers feeling excited: "I was happy either way."

Everything about this baby was a surprise. The couple, together for four years and just beginning to plan a 2015 wedding, figured they'd have children . . . someday.

Eric already had two boys from previous relationships, the first born when he was just 21. "We owed it to ourselves to do things the right way: to get married, have a house, plan for a family, not have it happen by accident," he says. And Julievette, whose parents separated when she was a baby, had always been the go-to babysitter for younger siblings and cousins - enough time with kids to persuade her that waiting was a good idea.

In fact, the two had recently decided that a new regime of celibacy until their wedding might be their safest option. But it was already too late; just before a pre-Thanksgiving trip to buy pies at Linvilla Orchards, Julievette took a pregnancy test. To be certain, she used the other test stick when they got home. Both were positive.

"I was surprised. And nervous," Julievette remembers.

She's a worrier, and pregnancy brought a list of new anxieties: She'd never really cared for an infant, and "babies are so fragile. I didn't know if I'd be good at it. I thought: Are we going to be OK financially?"

At the time, Julievette was working as a nanny for a family with five children ranging from 1 to 13, including a toddler with a brain injury who required daily therapy. But the first trimester slammed her: dizziness, headaches, nausea so severe she felt seasick if she turned her head.

Julievette quit the nanny job and spent a few months doing "odds and ends" - office work and organizing - until she felt well enough for full-time work; she's now recruitment manager for Educators On Call, which provides substitutes for Philadelphia charter and private schools. Eric is a security manager for PGW.

Meantime, the two got ready: scribbling lists of names on a sheet of poster board, attending prenatal appointments with a midwife and, for Julievette, watching a documentary series, The Business of Being Born, on Netflix. Lamaze classes were expensive, so instead the two viewed some YouTube videos on breathing exercises Julievette could do during labor.

She was adamant about wanting a natural birth. And at first all went according to plan. The birthing suite at Pennsylvania Hospital filled up with family members: Julievette's father, aunt, sister, grandmother, and cousin; her best friend from high school and that friend's mother; the father of the family for whom she'd nannied. "The support was really great. They were massaging me, making me laugh, taking my mind off the pain."

But after what seemed like eons of little progress - she was still only five centimeters dilated - Julievette agreed to an epidural, and the room cleared out except for her aunt, her sister, and Eric.

"I remember pushing, pushing, with my aunt on one side and Eric on the other and my sister taking pictures. They said, 'He's coming! You're doing great! His head is out!' " One final, flaming push and there he was - grayish-purple, which alarmed Eric until he heard the baby cry and the midwife assured him all was well. She put the baby on Julievette's chest.

"I was in shock. You're pregnant for nine months, you know there's a baby in there, but there's still this disconnect. Seeing him for the first time was indescribable: This just came out of me?"

The baby was pale and alert, looking around, making eye contact. Julievette immediately knew which of the names on their list was right. This was no Jeric Remy. "He's Oliver Blaze," she told Eric. And to the baby, she kept whispering, "You're so cute. I love you."

His birth has brought the couple more surprises: chiefly, an unexpected gush of support from family members, including some who were previously distant from their lives. Julievette's father, a truck driver who was more absent than present when she was a child, now drives down from New York on his days off to stay with Oliver. Eric's dad, a strict man with a commanding voice, has become a doting grandfather. "He's smitten over Oliver; he stops by and wants to hang out with us," she says.

Julievette's aunt comes over to cook dinner; a cousin babysits; her sister has offered to watch Oliver so Julievette can attend some work engagements without a baby looped to her body in a cloth papoose. "It's amazing," Eric says. "Everybody coming together because of this one little soul."

But the biggest change, Julievette says, is the shift in her own outlook. Ever since her mother died in 2009, in a car accident, Julievette had felt a constant cloud of sadness. Her childhood hadn't been easy: her mother had been ill, with fibromyalgia and depression. There were financial struggles and ruptured relationships.

"A lot of things were stressful. There were a lot of burdens I had to carry. But the next day, after Oliver was born, I felt like my heart was lighter. I felt like a new person, able to leave all that junk behind. I felt like I could finally live in the present and not in the past."

THE PARENT TRIP

If you've become a parent - for the first, second or fifth time - within the last six months, e-mail us why we should feature your story: parents@phillynews.com.

(Giving birth, adopting, or becoming a stepparent or guardian all count.) Unfortunately, we can't respond individually to all submissions If your story is chosen, you will be contacted.