Baby Simon

Quite some time ago, my sister-in-law Jessica asked me to be her doula during her natural childbirth. I was thrilled and honored to be asked so of course I accepted. My duties as her doula were to attend one of her HypnoBabies classes with her and basically do whatever she needed me to do during her labor and birth. I eagerly anticipated her baby's arrival and finally on November 15th I got the call I had been waiting for. Jessica had gone into labor at about 9am, at 1pm things were picking up so she called. I arrived at about 2:30. Her water broke at 3:30 and we headed to the birthing center.

I snapped this on our way out the door

Jessica was amazing and her cute little guy was born at 6:07pm. It was such a blessing for me to be able to participate in his birth.

After he was born came the naming. Caleb and Jessica had a short list of names and were going through those trying to decided what fit. Noah, Jacob and Luke were the top picks. Noah started gaining traction and looked to be the winner. However when Caleb and I were talking he mentioned that he liked the Apostle names which is when it hit me and I said, "What about Simon?" Caleb said, "Yeah, Simon's OK" and Jessica said something like "Simon's OK but I really like Noah." Pretty quickly it was down to Noah and Simon. Basically everyone that came through thought he looked like a Simon more than a Noah, but Jessica wasn't convinced. Around midnight I fell asleep in a chair while the new parents were basking in their cute baby. Around 2am we decided to head home which is when Caleb said to Jessica: Are you sure? as he was filling out paperwork. Jessica: Yes I'm sure. Caleb: OK Simon Peter it is. So yes, I am taking credit here :).

Yesterday I brought my girls down to meet their newest cousin. Claire was beside herself with joy at the prospect of holding a new baby, Alice was ambivalent. Claire held Simon for quite some time (with supervision of course) and was very pleased about it. Alice held him for about 2 seconds and was done. Claire was hilarious giving Jessica all kinds of advice about wrapping him in a blanket, putting him to bed, reading to him and feeding him. We are all so excited to welcome Simon into our family.