The amazing Haley Adams and Cooper Zane (10 months)
Hailey is a doctor in the midst of her surgical residency and had always thought that she would wait until she was done to have children. That all changes as she and her husband were in a bar one night, chatting about what to do with a room in their house. She pointed out that they could make it into a nursery eventually and her husband nudged that they could just have a baby and make it a nursery now.
They started trying right away and were pregnant by the end of the month. Haley's pregnancy was wonderful. She felt good throughout and didn't have any complications, but her last trimester was difficult as she was working overnights in trauma until she was 40 weeks. Cooper arrived very punctually, on his due date and though she labored in hospital for longer than she'd hoped was able to have an unmedicated, vaginal delivery that was wonderfully empowering and she was discharged the following morning.
Breastfeeding was more difficult to navigate than Haley had imagined and says she feels like she spent her entire maternity leave nursing and pumping. When they went for Cooper's first check up she learned he'd lost some weight and she needed to start supplementing. Haley struggled emotionally for guite some time until she realized that she didn't need to feel guilty for feeding her son formula as long as he was fed. He is happy and healthy and that's what matters. Since she works such long days breastfeeding has remained important to Haley. There are days she doesn't get to see her son awake but she can crawl into bed and have the closeness that comes with nursing him at night even though he's getting bottles during the day time.
Haley remembers looking through the photos and stories from this project before she was certain she wanted to have children of her own and realizing that she did; she wanted to be a mom and experience motherhood, as well as all of the beauty, challenges, and triumph that comes with it.