Ballet Class

Lily has always had a natural talent and love of music and dance. Over the past year Lily has taken several ballet classes that she has loved every time. Here are some pictures and a video of her most recent session of ballet.

Clara's Blessing Day

Today we blessed Clara at church and it was beautiful. Ben blessed her with his dad, a friend from the ward (Jeremy Five Crows), and the Bishopric.

He talked a lot about how she will be compassionate and serve those who have less than her. The point I remember best was that she will see the injustices in the world and fight against them and that she will be a voice for those who don't have one. The image that popped into my head was that of an advocate or a lawyer for those who are disadvantaged and mistreated. Or maybe a social worker. We'll see. I'm excited to get to know my little girl as she grows.

It's always amazing to listen to newborns receive a blessing 10 times their size. It's like a little glimpse into the soul of this tiny bag of potatoes we recently brought into the world. It turns out that babies turn into contributing members of society one day. They don't poop all over themselves and wake the entire household up throughout the night forever :)

We were blessed to have Ben's parents with us for Clara's blessing day, as well as several of our friends and neighbors who aren't LDS. They were gracious enough to join us for the blessing and then to celebrate and share lunch together at the church afterward. It was a small way I could say thank you for all the incredible help they have given to our family since Clara's birth.

Lily Turns 4!

Lily was SO excited for her birthday this year. She wanted everything to be perfect. Her cake had to be a rainbow cake with yellow frosting and rainbow sprinkles. Lily helped me make it the day before and, oh, she worked so hard on it. When we done frosting she said, "I want my cake to be really special." And it was, simply because Lily wished it to be so.

The first thing she said to me in the morning was, "Do I look four?" She opened her presents in perfect grace with punctuations of, "I love this!" and, "I always wanted an Elsa dress up!" and saying thank you without any prompting. This girl is a delight in every way possible, a ray of sunshine, an empathetic and loving little human. She makes us laugh with her "Lilyisms" and her spontaneous dance parties.

A few days after her birthday she fastened her own button on her pants and said, "I think four is a good number to do my own button." She also wanted to know if her clothes would still fit when she turned 4. I guess since we always talk about how big she is getting she thought she would literally be bigger after her birthday.

Lily is always the first person awake in our family. She is sometimes awake at 5:30 and will sit in her bed, patiently watching the clock until it turns 7:00 and she can exit her room. She loves eating cereal more than anything else, but all breakfast foods are high on her list. She loves the frosting on top of the cakes and donuts the best and often just licks off the frosting and leaves the cake behind. Lily loves dancing, coloring, doing stickers, playing school, playing with friends, and holding Clara. She is a strong little girl and knows how to set her boundaries. Her best friend is Tommy. They play all kinds of imaginative games together and miss each other after being apart for just a couple of hours. Lily loves playing Candy Land, Sorry, and lots of other board games. She loves to help me bake. Her favorite activity is watching movies and Netflix. If she could watch movies and eat cereal all day long she would be totally content. Lily is our little adventurous buddy. She is always game to go for a walk or to accompany someone to the store. She loves to choose her own outfit every morning. She is creative and colorful and fun in every way possible.

We love you, Lily Bug! We are so happy you joined our family!

Christmas 2015

We had a very low-key Christmas this year. Having a newborn will do that to you.

We ate our Christmas breakfast casserole, opened the mountain of presents everyone was so kind to send us, and ate our Christmas pizza. We spent the day playing, watching new movies, chatting with family far away, and hanging out. It was the perfect day.

The highlight of my morning was watching Ben open his gift from me and the kids. It was the first time in our 7 1/2 years together that I was able to genuinely surprise him with a gift he really wanted.

From a Dad's Perspective

This is Ben's account of Clara's birth. He was the true hero as he called midwives, ran around the house getting things for me, and helped me through contractions/pushing.

So here's the birth story (admittedly from a dad's perspective, WARNING for some small graphicness):

Crystal woke me up at 1am on the dot, and she said, "I'm having some contractions."

"Don't worry, I'm here," I said. We were six days overdue and we'd had a couple of times where we thought the Big Day was here. I didn't think much of it at first.

"Bad ones," she said, to punctuate it.

Oh. "How far apart?"

"About three minutes."

"Holy crap, we need to call the midwives!"

"No, no, I want to see if this is real first."

"Alright, let's move around for a minute." A minute passes, and I see the look on her face. "*Now* let's call the midwives."

Crystal shot me a look that I've learned to interpret as, "fine, have it your way". So I talked to the midwife on call, and when I told her they'd only been going for 20 minutes, she asked to talk to Crystal. She said she'd get ready and we could call back if they went away.

The next contraction was very bad. Well, at least it sounded very bad. I timed the one after, and then I called back to say that it was a minute long, when I heard Crystal shout that she wanted to push.

"Don't push!" I shouted. The midwife said she'd rush out right away, and told Crystal to lie on her left side to try to stop the pushing urge.

The next contraction was terrifying. The midwife wasn't here, and Crystal was shouting that she needed to push. We breathed as well as we could (read: not well) through that one. The next one, her waters burst in a pressurized spray. The midwife called and asked to be let in to the apartment. As I went out the door to get her, Crystal screamed "SHE'S COMING!"

Nine minutes later, Clara was fully out. That's it. It was nine minutes between me and having to catch the baby—one hour, three minutes from start of labor to birth. Crystal showed nothing but courage and grace under fire, and it was our best birth by far...Crystal's recovery has been very easy, comparatively. The midwives were super professional, and are probably VERY good drivers (Portland was, still is, flooded, and finding parking near the apartment in the night is not easy.)

Hope you enjoyed the story.

Anna Clara is Here!!

After nearly 41 weeks of waiting our sweet Anna Clara cannonballed her way into the world early in the morning of December 8. This is her story.

We were planning a homebirth, and it's a good thing we were prepared for just that. A very good thing.

I went to bed on December 7 feeling the same as I had felt every other evening for the past several weeks. Big. Pregnant. Uncomfortable. Discouraged that I was still big, pregnant, and uncomfortable. I had no idea that our baby would be coming in just a few hours.

At about 12:45 am I woke up feeling cramps in my lower abdomen. I tried to roll over and ignore them, but finally decided to get up and move around a bit. My first thought was that I had gas. It didn't feel like labor at all. I got up, checked on the kids, went potty, and felt better enough that I climbed back into bed to try to go back to sleep.

After a few minutes I realized that the cramps were coming in waves about every 3 minutes. After breathing deeply through 4 or 5 of these waves I shook Ben gently and told him that maybe, just maybe, I was having contractions. He rolled over, sleepily put his arm around me and said, "I'm right here with you." In his words he explained later, "We were six days overdue and we'd had a couple of times where we thought the Big Day was here. I didn't think much of it at first."

We breathed through one contraction together and then he asked how far apart they were coming. I told him about every 3 minutes. That woke him right up! He jumped out of bed and said, "We better call the midwives then!" I still wasn't convinced that I was in  real labor or that we were close enough to having a baby to call the midwives. Reluctantly, I slid out of bed and did a few things, just in case this was the real deal.

I brushed my teeth, put my hair up, and closed the door to the kids' room, pausing as needed to breathe through the "cramps" I was having. I got really cold and started shaking. As I threw on my robe I told Ben that I was probably just shaking because I was nervous.

We walked out to the front room together shortly after 1:00 am. Ben had already paged the midwives and was waiting for a call back. I knelt down against our yoga ball while Ben sat on the couch. We turned the Christmas tree lights on. We held hands and sat quietly together in the stillness of the morning.

As another contraction came on I squeezed Ben's hands and breathed deeply. Our midwife, Sharon, called to assess the situation. Ben reported that I was still having contractions about every 2-3 minutes and that they were lasting 45-60 seconds. Sharon asked me if I felt like they should come over right now or if I wanted to wait and see how things progressed. Honestly, I still wasn't convinced that I was in real labor. She said that she would get up and get dressed and ready and then give us a call back in 10-15 minutes to see how we were doing.

It was about 1:15 am.

I breathed through another contraction or two kneeling against the yoga ball. I was a little uncomfortable kneeling so I thought maybe I would sit on top of the ball and see how that went.

Sitting up changed everything.

As another contraction came on it didn't just feel like a wave. It was a tsunami that threatened to overwhelm my entire soul.

Breathing through that one was different. It was hard work. It was labored. I held Ben's hand and yelled, "Ow, ow, ow. HONEY!!" I could feel my body start to bear down. I instantly got hot and sweaty and threw off my cushy robe. When it was over Ben grabbed his phone and said, "I'm calling Sharon back!"

Can you believe that even at this point I still kind of rolled my eyes and thought it unnecessary to call the midwives again? I didn't want to bother them more than we already had. Am I glad for a proactive husband who could see things as they really were!

He called Sharon back and told her that I had a contraction that "almost made me want to push". She left her house immediately.

It was just after 1:20 am.

I knew that if the contractions were going to be like the last one I needed to do something different. I was worried that I might be in for a very long night of very painful contractions. I asked Ben to fill up our bathtub and I waddled as fast as I could back to the bathroom to hop in. I never made it.

Once I got to the bathroom another contraction hit. I knelt against a chair and could feel the urge to push overwhelm me. As I breathed I slowly groaned to Ben, "PUSH!" He was on the phone with Sharon, who was frantically trying to find street parking. When he heard me say, "Push," he cried, "NO! Don't push, don't push!! Sharon's coming!" I couldn't help it. The baby wanted to come.

One of Ben's Facebook friends put it accurately when she said, "Not pushing when your labor has progressed to that point is like not vomiting when your stomach starts heaving to vomit." This is the first delivery out of my three where I felt that urge to push and she is right. It's not an urge you can really control or stop.

I managed not to push her out in the bathroom, but just barely. Once I could stand up I turned off the bath water and yelled at Ben to lay out our birthing blanket. (This was an old quilt with industrial plastic tacked onto one side. It saved our sheets, blankets, and pillows from getting destroyed.) As he threw the blanket across our bed he said, "Sharon says lie on your left side and that will slow things down." Before he had even rolled out the entire blanket I jumped onto it on my left side and prepared for another contraction.

Mad props to my amazing husband, Ben, here. I can't imagine the adrenaline rush he was on as he prepared for the possibility of catching his daughter unassisted.

Another contraction came and I couldn't hold it back anymore. The baby was coming whether or not a trained professional was there to catch her. I pushed and could feel her move down.

Sharon still wasn't there.

On the next contraction I pushed again, this time with such ferocity that it made the amniotic sac explode. Ben has been duly traumatized by that sight. :)

It was about 1:38 am.

I asked if he could see her head yet and he said no. I felt like it was probably coming on the next push.

Sharon called from the front door of our secure building. Ben ran out to let her inside. I had another contraction and started pushing. As they ran down the hall of our building I screamed, "SHE'S COMING! SHE'S COMING!"

Ben and then Sharon ran in. Another contraction hit and this time the baby was crowning.

The midwife assistant called from the front door. Ben ran to let her in. She made it just in time to watch the baby's head come out.

It was 1:44 am.

The next contraction was intense. I remember Sharon saying, "Let your body do the work." I pushed and I screamed and I could feel her head come out. I saw in my mind the image of a ring of fire. I kept pushing through the pain because I didn't want that ring of fire to last any longer than it already had.

After 3 minutes passed without another contraction Sharon asked me to roll over onto all fours. I heard Ben say, "The cord is not wrapped around her neck, Honey. She's fine." Another contraction didn't come. She asked me to push on my own. I started to get worried. I heard the intensity in her voice: "Come on, Crystal, PUSH!"

I pushed. Between pushes I asked if the baby was OK. I didn't hear any crying. Sharon said the baby was fine, that she was moving her mouth, which was a good sign. I could hear in Sharon's voice that it was critical to get her out immediately, though.

I buried my head in the bed and pushed with all I had. I could feel tugging and I could sense the urgency. Then all of a sudden I felt the pressure release and it was over.

I looked down to see a giant healthy baby girl lying on my bed. I heard her open her mouth and cry. Sharon said, "Look, Crystal, there's your baby!"

I looked at Ben. He was crying and saying, "Oh my goodness, there she is!"

I wiped the sweat from my forehead, threw off my shirt and grabbed her. Sharon helped me roll over and hold her.

We named her Anna Clara. She was 10 lbs 4 oz.

It was 1:48 am.

At 1:52 am our second midwife, Amy Jo, ran in.

"When is she going to get big?"

I hemorrhaged, just like I had during the delivery of both my other kids. The midwives were well prepared. They placed an IV immediately after the delivery and gave me a bag of fluid. We hung it with a coat hanger from the ceiling fan.

They gave me a shot of pitocin to stop the bleeding and put some pitocin in my IV.

I held my little girl and lay back musing on the events of the past hour. Here I was holding my baby. Just over an hour previous she had been inside of me. It was surreal.

I remember a few minutes after she was born Ben asked, "Are we sure she's a girl? Did anyone check?" We hadn't. In all the excitement and the urgency to get an IV placed we had forgotten to even look.

Tommy came out of his room at 2:00 am. He heard me pushing and thought I was playing a trick. He came into my room to meet his little sister and then stayed up and played LEGO in the front room the rest of the night. He stayed up all day long and finally crashed at 5:00 pm that night.

Lily wandered into our room with her big blue eyes open wide around 7:00 am. She didn't say a word. The midwives were still there. She took in the whole scene of the baby and me in bed and the midwives and just sat with Ben to process it all.

My blood pressure held steady and I actually felt great right after the delivery. Much better than I had the previous two times. I didn't get light headed or nauseous. I felt like I could get up and dance.

I couldn't, of course. It still took a couple of hours before I could stand without fainting right away.

My recovery has been amazing compared to my other postpartum recoveries. I tore just enough to warrant one small stitch. The difference between one stitch and recovering from a large tear is delightful.

Over the past two days we have been bathed in so much love and support. We haven't had to worry about making food or taking care of our older kids. Others have done that so that we can rest and take care of Clara.

Clara is a delightful little girl. She eats well and often and sleeps as long as she is either nursing or being held. She has a head full of black hair and soft red skin. Her lungs are loud and powerful. She is perfectly healthy.

The kids love her. They play with her in the morning and hold her at night. Tommy asked when she will learn to smile. Lily asked when she will learn to walk and talk. They are naturals at nurturing their new baby sister.

Here are some links to read Tommy's birth story and Lily's birth story. They are beautiful as well, though less dramatic than Clara's story.

Still Waiting on Baby and More Autumn Pictures

I am now three days overdue with our baby. The best way I can describe our feelings is that we are just in shock. Nowhere in my mind did I actually think I would go over my due date since I've been early with my other two. Bless those other two for coming early.

I vacillate between feeling really sad and feeling really upset. Being angry is better. I actually get up to do things around the house and with the kids. Instead of sitting around waiting for this "baby" we get out and live life. Being sad just makes me and everyone else depressed. I am trying to come to peace with our situation, realizing that if we don't have the baby by next week I have to start doing unpleasant things like non-stress tests at the hospital. It's just hard. I just want her here. And I just don't want to be pregnant anymore. Like ever again. I want to be able to walk without grimacing in pain and lie down without feeling like my ribs are going to split open. I want to stop getting simultaneously punched in the vagina and kicked in the ribs. And I want to sleep. Oh, how I long to sleep! For the past six weeks or so I feel like I've been on a camping trip. I sleep on one side until my hip aches too much. Then there is the production of moving all my pillows to the other side, hoisting my huge self up, and turning over. I know life with a newborn doesn't really mean sleeping ever, but at least when I get to sleep it will be real sleep.

I know I should probably be grateful or something, but living in the moment right now means I can't act like everything is sunshine and rainbows just because I am creating a new life. It's hard work and I've spent most of this year doing it and I'm just ready to be done. I want to hold my baby. Is that really too much to ask?

I took this picture when I was about 38 1/2 weeks along. I had a good day that day. I felt beautiful. I felt the wonder and amazement of what my body was capable of. I was happy and content and just in awe of how beautiful life is. I'm glad I took this picture when I did because it's been pretty hard since then. I've only grown bigger and grumpier :)

On a different note, I got a new camera for Christmas this year. I know it's not Christmas yet, but I don't care. We wanted to have the camera before the baby arrived so we got it early. We have had fun taking more artistic pictures with it. Ben is quite the photographer, thanks to a high school photography class. Here are a few pictures of our children WHO DECIDED TO COME OUT, UNLIKE THEIR LITTLE SISTER.