Meeting Cooper: Part 1

November 2021

It had been almost six years since our girl was born. It took us that long to decide we should try for another. In reality, what pushed me to begin thinking about it was the time stamp on the IUD we’d been using as birth control since our daughter was born. I knew I had three to five years.

So, at five years I showed up to my OBGYN appointment to have the device removed, after months of pep-talking myself and having dozens of conversations with my husband about how crazy it would be to get pregnant again. Maybe I should have sensed some sort of cosmic plan in place when I got this first bit of unexpected news that day. The nurse practitioner I met with said, “This device has recently been approved for use for seven years. You have the option to keep it for a couple more years if you’d like.”

This was a very tempting offer. I was not prepared for my first child, not unlike most women. Being a mother wasn’t something I’d dreamed or fantasized about. It was something, I guess, I figured grown up people do. Our baby girl rocked my world in ways I didn’t know was possible, and I found myself struggling for years afterward to gain my footing and figure out who I was as a mother. I have always been insecure and unsure of myself; motherhood seemed to make it 100 times worse.

Finally I responded, “No, I’ve been mentally preparing for this day for months. I don’t want to have to redo all that prepping in another couple years.”

I left that office anxious, but ready for the possibility of pregnancy at any time. Our daughter was thriving and we were in a great place financially. We had always wanted to give a sibling to our child, and we felt confident that two children was the perfect number for us. We were ready.

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The pregnancy happened in the third month of trying. We felt very grateful to have gotten pregnant so quickly because we were aware of many who were struggling to get the baby they wanted, sometimes for years, and sometimes even losing the baby they had wanted so badly.

We were living in Texas for the summer as part of a sales position my husband had been in ever since we got married nearly nine years earlier. A big part of the job was traveling and we’d seen a lot of Colorado and Texas in the eight years on the job. This was our ninth summer of traveling. A lot of people thought we were nuts for moving every summer, and maybe we were. But it was all we’d known and we were comfortable in that lifestyle.

I struggled to find a traditional doctor who would see me for the first part of my pregnancy because we would be relocating back to Utah before the baby was born. This struggle stressed me out for weeks, until someone mentioned maybe I should try a midwife. This had never occurred to me. In my limited experience, midwives were for hippies and naturalists, and I didn’t consider myself either of those. But I was desperate. I really wanted someone to check on me and the baby. So I got a hold of a little midwife office that was nearly an hour away and set our first appointment. The midwife, Jean, felt like a Godsend. After many disappointing phone calls with many nearby doctors and being turned away, Jean said, “I would absolutely love to check up on you and your baby while you’re here for the summer.”

My husband, James, and our daughter, Andi, gathered into Jean’s office for our first appointment. The office was in an old home in the middle of an old neighborhood. The outside was painted a light shade of blue and it had a cute front porch with a large swing attached to the ceiling. It was a cozy kind of place and I fell in love with it. I learned it was called a birth center, and had my eyes opened to the world of midwifery for the first time in my life.

The room we were placed in had a medical exam table in one corner, a cluttered desk in another corner, an old squishy couch against the wall, and a wire basket filled with children’s books. Andi immediately went to the pile of books. I was 12 weeks along. We had waited to tell Andi the news until this moment. We knew as soon we told her, she’d tell everyone in earshot and I was hesitant to share any news until I had heard the heartbeat for myself. I’ll never forget the look on Andi’s face as I started to undress for the exam.

“Mom! What are you doing?!” Andi asked me, horrified and visibly uncomfortable that I was getting naked in this old blue house.

I started laughing. It’s not like I was exactly comfortable being the one having to strip down and get into an old robe. James jumped in, “She just needs to have the doctor check on something really quick.”

Andi caught on quickly. She always does. “Is she checking you for a baby?” She had probably heard us have some conversations about the possibility of a baby, and the birth center walls were covered with pictures of babies. It was kind of hard to miss, even for a five year old.

“I guess we’ll see, honey,” I replied, smiling to try and hide my nervousness.

Jean knocked and entered the room. She had a welcoming personality and smile, and with her warm Texas accent on top of that, you couldn’t help but feel at ease in her presence. She checked my vitals and reported that my blood pressure was great.

“Oh, I’m glad. I had a little bit of high blood pressure with my first pregnancy,” I told her.

“Well, that is an excellent blood pressure, especially given the fact that you’re sitting mostly naked in front of a stranger,” Jean said, and we all chuckled uncomfortably.

Finally the moment arrived when we heard our baby’s heartbeat for the first time. It’s hard to describe the feeling of knowing there’s someone growing inside of you, and those first moments of finding out. There’s so much wonder in a new life. So much unknown, but so much promise. It’s unlike any other feeling on Earth. Jean had an old, small ultrasound machine in the room, and she told us she could try to find the baby but it may not work because I wasn’t very far along. Sure enough on the screen we saw our little bean show up. The room was filled with smiles. We were given a due date of December 10th, and that date was instantly etched in our minds. The machine didn’t have a printer, so we took a picture of the screen on our phones and couldn’t wait to share the news with family and friends.

Jean finished the exam and ultrasound and asked if we had considered genetic testing. “This can be important for finding out if your baby will have any abnormalities, and if they do, a lot of people will consider aborting. I am a Christian and don’t believe in that, but as a professional I have to allow it as an option to you.”

I looked at James, and he immediately responded to Jean, “No, we don’t want to do any testing. We believe the same thing and it won’t matter what the tests say, we won’t choose abortion anyway.” With our first pregnancy we declined genetic testing as well and it was a very normal, healthy pregnancy. What’s the use when you’ll still keep the baby anyway?

“I understand,” said Jean, “even so, it can be nice to be aware of any possible problems so that you can prepare for them.”

“No, we’re good,” James ended the discussion. I didn’t think twice about it. Though it’s always slightly scary to think about your new baby having any kind of issues, I didn’t consider it a possibility. We were both young, very healthy, and this was only my second pregnancy ever. What could go wrong?

We all left the birth center feeling so excited for what would be next on this journey of growing our family. From the day Andi found out until the day we met Cooper, she would pray every single night at bedtime for “Mommy to grow a healthy baby.” I had the same prayer. We all did. None of us ever thought there could be a chance that something would be amiss with our new little one.