Thankful Thursday in the Family Way....

This article was just published and came to my attention on Facebook.  I posted this photo of our niece and her family a week or so ago.  We are so proud of this little family! The last time we saw them, Nikki was still carrying Elias, so it's been over 2 years.  The article caught us up on their experiences and things we hadn't heard!  

I hope some of you will enjoy the story, even though you don't know them. It is well written!

Thanks for your visit today!  I am so blessed and thankful for our big, beautiful familia!

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The Parent Trip: Nicola and Conrad Kraybill of Morgantown

The Kraybill family: Mom Nikki, dad Conrad, Elias, and baby Norah. GREG YODER

Anndee Hochman, For The Inquirer

POSTED: Wednesday, January 27, 2016, 3:01 AM

On Conrad and Nikki's first date, he nearly marooned his mom's Chevy Lumina in a flooded creek. On the second, he invited Nikki to his parents' house - he was bunking in their basement after graduating from West Chester University - for a home-cooked meal of salmon, steamed broccoli, and milk shakes.

By the third date, Nikki realized she would not be returning to Slovakia, where she'd been teaching English for nearly two years. "I knew: This is where I want to be. This is where I want to stay."

Despite surface differences - Nikki was raised in an exuberant Italian family that includes six siblings; Conrad comes from a reserved Pennsylvania Dutch clan with just one sister - their aspirations were emphatically aligned.

"She has a phenomenal love for family and children," Conrad says, "and that was important to me."

After a business trip to North Carolina that involved some soul-searching - "Is this the right girl? Is this the right decision?" - followed by some ring-shopping, Conrad proposed in a gazebo on the grounds of an estate where the two had gone to hike.

And then, the guy who wasn't quite sure he was ready to grow up, the boy who rode a motorcycle and sang in a band called Navy Blue, stunned his bride by singing his vows at their 2009 wedding, to the delight of their 275 guests.

Nikki knew she wanted to be a mother. But not quite yet. First, the couple traveled: Napa Valley, Chicago, Mexico, the Dominican Republic. Nikki loved her job as an administrative assistant; Conrad was in a career-track position at a small software company.

One day in spring 2013, she summoned him to the top of the stairs - "Can you come up here for a second? I need something" - and held out a positive pregnancy test. It was the next inch in the growing-up gradient.

"There were times when Nikki wished she was still in Europe," Conrad says, "and a part of me that wondered if I should have pursued the rock-star dream a little more.... But we were ready for this next phase of our lives."

Nikki loved being pregnant. And both of them embraced the philosophy of a Bradley Method natural-childbirth course, which emphasized the partner's role in helping the woman relax.

This wasn't the old-school scenario of a father's pacing the waiting area or hovering "north of the equator" in the delivery room, recoiling from the mess below. "That was a big mental shift - that birth isn't a crazy, disgusting, smelly, painful experience," Conrad says, "but a beautiful event that you both need to be part of."

Elias - a name they'd plucked from a character in Boardwalk Empire - was due Nov. 10. On Nov. 13, midwives found that Nikki was already five centimeters dilated; apparently, she'd been in labor for days, even during the 120-person surprise 30th birthday party she'd thrown for Conrad a week earlier.

Her water broke at Reading Hospital, and Conrad stepped into his coaching role, breathing in harmony with Nikki and using the massage techniques he'd learned. But the baby was turned sideways; Nikki pushed for four hours with little progress.

Finally, a doctor made the call: only a caesarean would get this baby out. Conrad yanked on scrubs as orderlies pushed Nikki, still writhing with contractions, to the operating room.

"The doctor started pulling up this child," Conrad recalls, "and my first thought was: It's just like in Mary Poppins, when she keeps pulling a floor lamp out of her suitcase. Where's he coming from?"

It was an inerasable moment. So was the instant that Elias stopped crying and stared wide-eyed into his mother's face. "It had been an intense, traumatic four hours," Nikki says. "In that moment, I thought: My baby boy is here."

A year-and-a-quarter later, she stood on their front steps, waiting for Conrad to return from a volleyball game. "So . . . I'm pregnant," she announced. They did the math: once again, their due date would be Nov. 10.

Despite the synchronicity, this pregnancy was different. Nikki and Conrad were tired, less focused on murmuring to the in-utero baby. Elias was active and curious; once, in a doctor's waiting room, he toddled to an elderly woman, lifted her shirt and said, "Baby?"

This time, labor was an epic four-day ride involving two visits to the hospital, a shot of pain medication and, finally, a hand-scrawled recipe from the midwife: "4 tablespoons almond butter, 4 tablespoons castor oil, 1 cup apricot nectar, 1 cup champagne. Sex. Nap. Walk. Labor!"

Back at home, they tried it. Within half an hour, Nikki's contractions were 90 seconds apart. "I thought I was going to have the baby on our living room floor," she recalls. Instead, Norah was born in the same hospital room where Nikki had labored with Elias, eight minutes after midnight on the day she was due to arrive.

"The birth of Norah was a healing experience from what had happened with Elias. I wasn't as traumatized anymore," Nikki says. As for Coach Conrad, he felt as dazzled as he had after Elias' birth, when he gushed to Nikki, "I worship the ground you walk on."

Parenting two demands a new kind of constancy. There is the infant who wakes at 5 a.m. and fusses until 6:30, moments before the toddler calls from his room: "Mom-mom! Dada! Come!"

What endures is their relationship, deepened by both births. "It's like going through war together - how you have to rely on each other and communicate," Nikki says. "Those moments created a very, very deep bond," Conrad agrees.

Recently, Nikki found Elias in Norah's room, standing on a stool he'd dragged to the crib, one arm stuck through the slats, bottle in hand. Another epiphany: She and Conrad hadn't only birthed two babies. They'd created a new relationship, between the 2-year-old crowing, "I feed Norah!" and the infant, slurping hungrily, eyes riveted on her brother's face.

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The Parent Trip

If you've become a parent - for the first, second or fifth time - within the last six months, e-mail us why we should feature your story: parents@phillynews.com. Giving birth, adopting, or becoming a stepparent or guardian all count. Unfortunately, we can't respond individually to all submissions. If your story is chosen, you will be contacted.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/living/20160127_The_Parent_Trip__Nicola_and_Conrad_Kraybill_of_Morgantown.html#1uVlSzFjkIJ5IC4W.99