Birth Story #2 Happy Birthday Neely!! December 30, 2010

‘Twas a few day after Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring not even the baby who is 4 days late inside of me now!

Tuesday afternoon December 29, 2009 I went to a scheduled Dr. appointment to have a non stress test because my baby bump was not removing itself on time. As I sat there hooked up to the machines listening and feeling my little gremlin wiggle and move inside of me I watched the monitors telling me I was having consistent contractions ever 10 minutes. The nurse re-enter the room to tell me the same observation of the results “wow! you’re not feeling this? it says you are having contractions every 10 minutes on the dot.” “no, not really I just have a little back pain but its bearable.” I said to her. This poor nurse insisted on having the Dr. come talk to me one last time before leaving the office, as she thought I may want to think about heading to the hospital soon. {HA!} And just as every Dr. I had seen for the last 2 weeks told me “you should go into labor at any time now!” and I thought to myself riiiiiight! So I hopped off the table and headed home to pass the time playing with my crazy 15 month old.

Hours have gone by

and nothing was happening. Josh had come home from work and we had eaten dinner… nothing. My mom {who is pretty much my unofficial doula} decided she wanted to spend the night JUST incase anything were to happen. We put Kelsey to bed one last time hoping that when she woke in the morning she would be a big sister. And the three of us proceeded to watch hilarious Youtube videos while I tried to bounce this baby out of me by  gently bouncing and rocking on a yoga ball. I was so tired and knew I should get a good nights rest incase anything did go down the following day. So about 11:30 I hopped into bed with my 75 pillows between my legs and snoozed of delivering this baby.

3am

I’m up not only to pee for the 15th time but I’m having some serious rumbles in my tumbles. Real contractions had begun. You moms know the ones where you can’t sit still through them, and they are more than just a period cramp. I tried to stay in bed and just flip flop back and forth through them because I wasn’t ready to get up yet… not happening so I crept out to the living {where my mom was sleeping} to snatch the yoga ball and rock on that. Of course my mom spotted the staggering pregnant women attempting to be graceful at 3 am. I sat on the ball and talked to her for a few minutes and finally when another contraction struck she jumped off the sofa and whispered with glee “I’M GETTING READY!!!”.  I slowly got Josh up but wasn’t really in a rush. I continued laboring for hours and finally gave in to call our friend to come watch Kelsey for us and my Bradley girls to get their camera and video cams ready to go… We’re having a baby 🙂

7:30ish

We arrive at the hospital. On our way there Josh asked for my prediction of when the baby would be out by. Of course I was super optimistic and said he/she will be out by 8am! okay okay how about 10am I  agreed. When I got to the hospital I was only 6cm dilated, totally bummed and a little discouraged because I really felt I was farther than that. But that didn’t matter anymore now I was wrestling with the nurse between contractions that it wasn’t necessary for me to have an IV – I was very well hydrated!! I insisted that it wasn’t necessary, I had a baby a year ago with out one and was fine… come on people. After that ordeal I wobbled to our room {which happened to be the same room I delivered Kelsey in – so cool and motivating!} and began super-duper labor. This was way more intense than last stage labor with Kelsey. Thankful we had an excellent nurse who only did what we asked and after Josh explained very clearly to her that drugs were not an option we were good to go! My Bradley girls had arrived with cameras in hand and lots of positive energy I was all set. For the next almost 2 hours I labored off and on the yoga ball with the best birthing partner by my side helping me breath through every contraction {Joshy poo!} We can laugh about it now but while I was in the midst of several contractions back to back and I was forcefully throwing my entire body onto Josh as he knelt down in front of me massaging my back and coaching me he stands up at the end of a contraction to stretch out and says “man!, this is killing my knees.” I could feel the eyeballs rolling from the 3 moms behind me with a few snickers who have all had natural births and put their husbands through the same thing, it was so classic 🙂

I had hit that point where I was involuntarily pushing

I was so focused through all of my laboring I could hardly keep my eyes open. I had hit that final point and knew it was time to move so I could push. It was so uncomfortable moving at all but it had to be done, and still my water had not broken {this happened with Kelsey}. As I am getting on the bed I faintly hear the nurses say that the Dr. that was supposed to deliver {the same Dr. I saw the day before} had just gone into a surgery and was no longer available… here we go again I thought {I had some random Dr. with Kelsey also}. A few minutes went by which is like an eternity when you are in labor and the nurses are getting everything ready for delivery and all of a sudden a women comes running into the room. Have no fear it was a Dr. who ran from another building down the road because no one else was available to deliver. At this point I was so focused I hardly remember this but she introduced herself to me {I couldn’t tell you her name if my life depended on it} and congratulated Josh and I  then proceeded to ask me if we took hypnobirthing classes because I was so focused it was hard to believe there were no drugs involved and how rare it is to see a women labor so calmly and focused. I remember answering her “HA! no” and that was that 🙂 My water finally broke {on its own this time} and within minutes {3 pushes} we had another little GIRL 🙂
Neely Edyn was born 7lbs 9oz 21inches born at 10:02 am

Party of 4

A year later and Neely has grown so much and is sweeter than ever. Kelsey and Neely are like 2 peas in a pod, they are truly BFF’s and the Crocker clan couldn’t be happier 🙂

nearing 1 year of life December 8, 2010

The first year of life brings forth so many changes in just 12 short months

As I watch my little Neely playing while I write this she is 11 months old { December 30th she will turn 1} and she is pulling herself up on to toys and walking along them as she is turning off and on the toy switches laughing with the deepest belly laugh. Last December she was still cooking in my oven!!

I enjoy reflecting on the past year plus the 9 months of growing her inside of me. While I was black Friday shopping a few weeks ago I thought about last year. My mom and I went out shopping at 5am for the first time ever and there we are laughing in the store because people are going bonkers after the hottest toy… except they couldn’t make it past my belly in the isle to get to the toy! Then they would say “excuse me”  but it didn’t matter what way I turned because I was so perfectly round at that point they weren’t getting by me and you know its pointless to even try and suck that belly in, it’s not going anywhere! This year I saw a bunch of beautiful pregnant mamas shopping and chuckled to myself because thats exactly what I looked like last year,and it was fun.

Josh and I watched a few videos the other day of the girls right after Neely was born. Man, Neely was so tiny and scrunchy, then there was Kelsey as bald as a baseball dancing to Mily Cyrus – Party in the USA. What the past year has brought to my family… hair for Kelsey and a sweet little personality and ambition for Neely.

I love, love, love that Josh and I have witnessed all of Neely’s fun milestones in the last 11 months. She has gone from that scrunchy and squeaky newborn to rolling over, sitting up, crawling, pulling herself up on things, walking along furniture and people and soon walking completely on her own. We started out with newborn diapers, baths in the sink, breastfeeding and swaddling and now have size 3 diapers, bath time with her big sister playing and splashing each other and mama, table food and crawling with her blanket in tow! These months have gone by so quickly but you know what they say…

TIME FLIES WHEN YOU’RE HAVING FUN 🙂

Confessions of the Modern Mama December 3, 2010

Confession #1

We all have fuses and some of them are longer then others. Mine has been short lately {my poor family}. I always seem to get caught in the heat of a teachable moment with my darling daughters while in public. The majority of the time it is a pleasant teachable moment and others are not so pleasant. Recently my 2 year old has been testing how independent we will allow her to be. She loves to “help” but does not understand that some times are more appropriate to help then others. For instance I brought them out to a lunch date with a friend from college. I had Neely in a stroller and Kelsey wanted to help push her out of the restaurant which would normally be fine but it was very crowded and there were lots of cars coming in and out of the parking lot. So I took the stroller handle to help direct Kelsey and protect her from any cars in the parking lot. Well how dare I try to take over Kelsey’s responsibility of pushing her sister into on coming traffic?! What kind of mother am I?

Well after taking over the reins of the stroller and Kelsey having a complete meltdown because of it.  I put the breaks on the stroller and disciplined {spanked} Kelsey on the curb between the restaurant and the parking lot for yelling at me and being defiant against my instruction. Yes I spanked my child in public. As I lifted my head from handling the situation a man was sitting right in front of me watching everything {who knows how many people witnessed it from inside the restaurant?!}. He never said anything to me but had an intrigued look on his face. I thought about apologizing as I walked by him with my distraught child but then thought to myself I have no reason to apologize. This is the way my husband and I have decided is best to discipline our children.

I look at it like this – I often hear older people complaining about disrespectful and lazy teenagers, often they blame that on a lack of discipline. Then there is the other side where people find it abusive to spank your children in discipline.

We discipline our children because we love them and we want them to grow up to be respectful and respected children, teenagers, young adults and eventually adults! Children will be children and they will have their moments as everyone does. But I am the parent for a reason and they are children for a reason. We are here to teach, instruct, protect and nourish our children into a healthy adulthood. So I confess that I discipline my children in public but there is no way I regret it!