Fisher Thomas Cooper

We were so glad to welcome our newest miracle early Tuesday morning, September 8, 2009, at 4:59 am. Needless to say things did not go as planned with the whole birth plan, but we couldn't be more thrilled with the outcome! I wanted to summarize Fisher's birth story so here goes:
As many of you know we had our last two children, Shelbie and Coral, at home with midwives. We were planning to do the same with little Fisher, however, after a not perfect stress test at 41 weeks it looked as if our well thought out plan was all about to change. During the non stress test Fisher had a couple dips in his heart rate during some small contractions which were concerning to the midwives and doctor. Because of the weak non stress test we had to take another test that same evening which included me getting pitocin pumped into me to create harder contractions and Fisher getting his heart rate monitored to see what happened. All this went down Friday night and since the second test went better we were able to go home for the weekend but were scheduled for another non stress test on Monday if I had not gone into labor on my own before then. On Sunday right before we turned in for the night I started having regular contractions. They continued all night long and into the morning and were to strong to be able to sleep during them but not strong enough to progress labor. The contractions tappered off during the morning and eventually just stopped. This was rather depressing so we had to go in for the second non stress test Monday evening at 5 pm. This second go around still wasn't good enough for the health professionals and so a different birth plan was created. I was to stay at the hospital Monday night, while monitoring the baby's heart rate, and then at 6 am in morning was to be hooked up to pitocin to get this labor on the road and our baby into the world.
Once again when I turned in for the night I started contractions all on my own and it looked as if it was another sleepless night in store. This time was a little different then the previous night because this time the contractions did get stronger and things were definitely progressing. Grant was such a good helper and there to support me and coach me the whole time. He was the best ice pack holder on my back during every contraction due to some back labor. I won't lie and say that it wasn't extremely, and I mean extremely, hard and during labor I did think about giving up and calling for pain medication. However, I kept telling myself that I could do it and I did a lot of enter visualization that the baby was working his way down and would soon be out. This time around I felt more in tune with what my body was telling me was happening and I am still amazed that I did it all natural in the hospital! I must say that I give myself props for this :)
So like I said before our miracle was born on his own time schedule at 4:59 am Tuesday morning. I am very thankful that I did not have to have the pitocin and am really thankful that he arrived with a clean bill of health. We are so grateful to be home and starting our life as a family of 6. Below are a few pictures of our Fisher right after he was born.
Fisher weighed 8 lbs 11 ozs and was 19 1/2 inches long.