Son of the Mountain People

If you aren’t “in the know,” our son, Fitz Bergen Powell, was born to us 5:01pm Thursday, August 29th, 2019 at 8 lbs. 9 oz. and 21.25 in. long. Jess carried him 41 weeks. Jess was induced into labor with Pitocin and had her water broken mid day. She pushed hard for two whole hours! The kiddo just didn’t want to budge. She was working so hard, but she was running out of energy. We could see the top of his head, but she was struggling to make him crown. The doctor was concerned with what energy Jess had left. As they prepared the OR for a C-section, she gave a couple rounds of incredible pushes which put our little guy within range to use a suction device to help guid him out. Two contractions later, he was out!

We named him Fitz Bergen, not because of the meaning, but because we came across the idea of these names and liked them. It was only afterwards when we had narrowed down our list that we looked up the meaning. Fitz simply means “son of” while Bergen means “mountain dweller.” As I have written about before, our identity is very much wrapped up in being close to the outdoors, something that Montana allows for in abundance. It’s been common for us to just refer to ourselves as the “Montana Powells” until we moved from Montana nearly three years ago. But that changed this year. We are back in Montana, and can once again resume our moniker, and how fitting that our son’s name literally falls in suite.

We have one night left in the hospital. The staff at St. Peters have been amazing and supportive every step of the way. This is such a different experience than with Elijah. Speaking of Elijah, he’s so excited to be a big brother! Krista came into town to watch Elijah and to free us up to spend time with Fitz and for Jess to recover. We’re pretty tired, but we’re so happy to be together.