Jackson and Naomi

Meet Naomi Corinne Liane, born June 7, 2011 at 8:47pm in Dallas, TX. Much has happened since Jackson was this small two and a half years ago, and I have documented very little of it. Sorry.

Life since Jackson has been busy. Hectic at times. But that's what we signed up for, right? We found out last fall Alana was pregnant again. Miss Naomi wasn't really planned, but she wasn't not planned either. We had a window of about a year when we wanted to have a second child, and we, or I, made it through that window shortly after it opened. The thought was to have both kids 2.5-3.5 years apart. So that they go to the same schools. They (maybe) want to do some of the same things together as they get older. We want them to be close. We realize their personalities are largely out of our control. They may be completely opposite and share zero common interests. But we wanted to do what we could to help them have a good relationship . Personally, I want them to be close so Jackson will be around to look after Naomi, and protect her from all the punk boys trying to get her behind the band hall after school. I realize the irony in this, because I was one of the boys getting girls behind the band hall after school. But really, if either, or both, Jackson and Naomi are anything like me or Alana growing up, we're in trouble.

But they're still young and cute now, so let's focus on that.



Naomi was due on June 1. Among everything we heard about the second child, when the first one came is a good indication of when the next one will come. Jackson was six days early, so naturally we were expecting the same for Naomi. I had been working pretty solid since January, leaving Alana alone to be pregnant and take care of Jackson from the time she got up, to the time Jackson went to bed, with a long work day in between. God bless her. My last job ended in mid-May, technically leaving me two weeks to recuperate and get the nursery ready. But we were anticipating about a week. We did quite a major room shuffle in our home for the nursery, and it was still in the complete disaster phase. Boxes and bins piled in the front room, the office was barely functional, and the to-be nursery had a rocking chair in the corner and a crib in pieces on the floor. Luckily, my job has made me very fast at making a room look good, and I was able to get it all done by the last week of May. We went to the doctor and there were still no signs of labor. Her due date came and went, and still no Naomi. Alana was getting increasingly uncomfortable and frustrated, with good reason, and I upped my wine and beer budget. Alana tried everything she heard to help along labor: walking, swimming, spicy food (she was adding Tabasco to salsa with chips), raspberry tea, the horizontal tango. But nothing was happening. Induction was an option, but we agreed we'd rather not mess with nature too much. She hadn't come yet because she wasn't ready. We respect modern medicine but decided to give the miracle of birth a little more time. We had an induction scheduled for Thursday the 9th, because it can become a health issue after a 41 weeks. Sunday, Alana started having contractions, not hard, but steady. We planned to stay at my parents house that night, but decided to go home so we could be close to the hospital. Just in case. After going to bed, Alana had several hard contractions just a couple minutes apart and we went to the hospital at two in the morning. False alarm. We just panicked. They sent us home. Wuah wuah...

Alana's friend Sara had suggested raspberry tea and swimming. She had drank raspberry tea all day and went swimming in her parents' pool the day she had her son. Alana was making raspberry tea every time I turned around. And we had been swimming in my parents' pool a few times, including Sunday, but it hadn't proved effective. On Tuesday, Sara invited us over to have lunch and swim at her parents house. We went. Ate. Swam. Came home and took a nap. Alana started having contractions at about 4:30. They were fairly strong and steady for about an hour. At 5:15, they were 7-8 minutes apart and Alana decided she'd better take a shower. I alerted our moms. The plan was for my mom to get Jackson, and Alana's mom to come to the hospital. Both were half an hour away, which would normally be enough time, if it weren't rush hour, and if Alana's labor hadn't kicked in to high gear in a matter of minutes. She got out of the shower, was barely able to get dressed, and by 5:30 the contractions were 3 minutes apart. We hopped in the car, took Jackson to Sara's house and rushed across town to the hospital. We got there at 6:30, spent about 4 minutes in triage, and Naomi was born just before 9pm. Conclusion: Sara's parents have a magic pool.

Jackson's labor was a grueling 17 hours long from the time we got to the hospital to the time he was born. Naomi's was just under 2 1/2. We had both hoped and prayed for faster and easier delivery. At one point, the nurse was holding Naomi's head from coming out because the doctor wasn't in the room yet. The doctor entered, "Did you let the baby hit the floor?" It was obviously a joke, but wasn't too far off. (Obgyn's and their humor..)
A big difference in this delivery was we decided to get the epidural right away. We tried a natural delivery with Jackson, but 15 hours of uninhibited labor pain was enough. This time, Alana got the epidural shortly after getting in the delivery room, and we turned on the Mavericks game. Two hours later, I was holding my daughter.

This all happened in the middle of a pivotal Game 4 of the NBA playoffs, which the Dallas Mavericks ended up beating the "unbeatable" Miami Heat in 6 games to win the championship. When I looked at the television before Naomi was born, the Mavs where down by 8. The next time I looked after she was born, they were up by 5. I don't want to be presumptuous, but the Mavs won that game and the next two, including game 6 in Miami to clinch the title. Just saying. I think the girl's got mojo.

My mom brought Jackson to the hospital the next day to meet his new baby sister. This is what followed:

We are so so proud of our little boy. We couldn't have hoped for a more sweet, sensitive, caring big brother. Let's hope it lasts!

We were unsure how the following weeks and months would be after Naomi was born. We took Jackson out of his school for the summer before he starts his new school in September. (hopefully more on that later) So it's the four of us at home all day. We knew how much attention Naomi would demand as an infant, and just hoped we could give Jackson enough of his normal attention that he wouldn't sabotage her diapers with arsenic. So far so good. Alana put it pretty well when speaking on this last night with my parents. "Jackson and Madison are joined at he hip. Naomi and I are joined at the breast." I've been making it a point to include Jackson in everything and keep his day active and fun. The Texas summer heat makes it challenging starting around 11am, but we're managing. And Naomi has been a lot easier to take care of than we anticipated. It's true what they say about the second child being easier. It is. Not just that you're comfortable with what you're doing, and that is a big part of it, but, at least in our case, Naomi is a much more mellow child than Jackson was at that age. I'm sure part of it is because she's a girl and he's a boy. And that she's the second child. But she is a LOT easier. Looking back, I think baby Jackson prepared us pretty well. We could not be happier with our newly founded family, and feel incredibly blessed with with our marriage and two wonderful children. We know life is not without it's struggles and challenges, but after everything we've been through together and individually leading up to now, we feel pretty good about the road ahead.