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HANNIBAL, MO. -- Pregnancy and labor can be difficult enough for a soon-to-be mom...it's even harder when your husband is overseas.
Afghanistan is more than seven thousand miles from Hannibal. One couple shortened that distance for the birth of their second daughter.
"I was induced in the morning and we were hoping it'd be a quick labor, but we were glad that it wasn't," said new mom Laurie Cooper.
Charlotte's dad and Laurie's husband, David, is deployed in Afghanistan, but he was still there for the birth of his second daughter.
"It turned out that his connection was better in the middle of the night for him," said Cooper.
They connected via Skype.
"I can't imagine not being able to talk to him in some way, just even on a daily basis. But to be able to connect this way for a birth was very special," Cooper said.
And how did dad take it?
"Big smile, excited, he was crying, I was crying, everyone in the room was crying. He was just so happy that he was able to see her right as she was born," Cooper said.
David was there in person for the birth of their first daughter, Savannah, but he played a different role during this birth.
"He actually was able to say, 'hey, here's the sun coming up here in Afghanistan,' and 'here's what it looks like where I live,' and he was able to kind of distract me while I was waiting for the next contraction," Cooper said.
And her advice for other military moms-to-be?
"You can do it, no matter what the circumstances are. We didn't know that he wasn't going to be there when we got pregnant. We thought that he would be there for the birth but every Army wife knows the military can do anything at anytime and you just have to roll with the punches. You can get through it and if you can make Skype work...do it," Cooper said.
The Coopers are actually stationed in Germany. Laurie's mom, who lives in Hannibal, flew to Germany to pick up Laurie and the Cooper's 18-month-old daughter, Savannah. Laurie almost wasn't allowed to fly, though, because she was 36 weeks pregnant.
