You Can Do This

Jennifer Rosen and her husband, Peter, were enjoying their blended family of four children when Jenn found out she was pregnant. “It was a shock,” she says with a laugh, “but we figured it was a God thing. He decided we were ready to be parents again!”

One thing Jenn knew for certain: She wanted a midwife. The delivery of her first baby, seven years earlier, had been long and difficult. “I knew I needed more support this time,” she says, “and when I met Jana Flesher, we really connected.”

Midwife Flesher saw Jenn through the challenge of gestational diabetes, consulting her Southdale Ob/Gyn physician colleagues when necessary. “She stuck with me, when she could have passed me off to a physician,” says Jenn. “She was all about ‘I want to do this with you.’ And she never made me feel like I was asking the wrong questions or that she was just waiting to go to another patient.”

When Jenn went into labor, Jana was a calming presence — and the voice of reason — in the delivery room. At one point during intense contractions, Jenn says she felt unable to continue: “I looked at Jana and said, ‘What are my options?’ And she said, ‘Your options are “You can do this!” ’ And that’s all I needed to hear.”

Later, when midwife Flesher saw that the umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck, she calmly and expertly set it right, without needlessly alarming Jenn. “I always liked Jana a lot in person, but I LOVED her in the delivery room,” says Jenn. “That’s where she thrives. I would recommend her to anyone.”

Jenn delivered a healthy baby girl, bringing together the blended Rosen family in a new and wonderful way. Jen and Peter named their daughter Levi, a Hebrew name meaning “joined in harmony.”

“When I sign Levi’s name,” says Jenn, “I dot the ‘i’ with a heart.”