The miracle of Life

This past weekend I was blessed to participate in the birth of Ethan James Copen. Ethan is the son of Robb's cousin Heather and her husband Dave. Heather wanted to have a natural birth so she asked me to be her coach since I had been through a natural birth. However nature was stacked against this plan. Heather developed high blood pressure and had to be put on pitocin to help the contractions. She did wonderfully for about 24 hours but then the pain of the augmented contractions became overwhelming. She had an epidural and felt much more comfortable. She progressed to 7-8 centimeters and then her body stopped. Since she had been in labor for 30 hours her doctor felt it was necessary to take the baby and not risk infection. So at 12:11am Ethan was born by c-section.

It was amazing to participate in this labor event. Being on the other side and being a coach is both up lifting and heart wrenching. There were times I wanted to beg her to get the epidural but I knew she wanted to try as long as she could. For the majority of the labor I felt very helpful and encouraging. The ultimate goal was to have a healthy baby and healthy mom and that is what happened. Ethan was 6lbs. 11oz.

I took a lot of pictures but I left my camera at the hospital so I will have to post them at a later date. I'm also a little upset I left our camera because now I have nothing to capture all the cute shots of Jenna. I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of potential cuteness.