Sharing Our ISR Story On the Local News

Jamie and I were recently given a really neat platform via our local news to share about Hadley’s near-drowning accident two years ago and ISR (Infant Swimming Resource).

About a month ago, the girls’ ISR teacher Kim was contacted by the local news about doing an upcoming story about the program, and she suggested pulling our family into the story. We gave her permission to mention it to them, and from there Kim shared several of my blog posts with the news outlet to see if they were interested in sharing ISR from this angle. They were immediately all in, so fast forward a few weeks and we were dressed and ready to go to film.

My mom asked me ahead of time if there was anything that I wouldn’t feel comfortable answering, and it was easy to answer no. We are very transparent and open about what happened, and Jamie and I talked ahead of time that we were ready to just wing it.

The Sunday morning of our lake trip was really the only time that everyone could make work, so we left the lake a couple hours early to come home and get to receive everyone. Jamie and I got ready at the lake, drove an hour home, and then focused on getting the girls ready once we got home around 8 a.m. I asked my mom to bring them home in pajamas, so we threw dresses on them, put their hair up, and got ready to film!

We had no idea what parts of our home they’d want to walk around and film in, so we made sure the entire home was spick and span before we left for the lake on Friday. I don’t ever mind some motivation to clean! 😉

At 9 a.m, the reporter and Kim showed up and we quickly got to work. The reporter Kelly spent about half an hour interviewing Jamie and me, and we could tell she’d done her research. She asked fantastic questions that made it easy to naturally tell our story. The girls were exhausted from a fun weekend at Grandma and Grandpa’s, so they weren’t interested in talking on camera. They’re both such chatter boxes and love talking about swimming with Kim, but they were basically mute once the camera was on!

Once our portion was done, we headed two streets over to our quiet neighborhood pool.

Kelly interviewed Kim poolside about ISR, and then she and the girls got in the water to do their thing. The girls had no idea the camera was on them; They simply swam with Kim like normal and showed off their skills.

At one point the reporter put a GoPro on Hadley, which she obviously thought was the neatest thing!

I was so impressed with the reporter as she directed us so well. None of us had ever done anything like this before, but she was incredibly efficient, kind, well spoken, and generally just great at her job. We couldn’t believe that she’s a one-person show; She pitches, writes, films, and edits everything, usually in a matter of just hours. She was awesome and made this a fun experience for everyone.

It aired a couple days later, and we were so happy with how it came together. I had actually gotten pretty teary at the lake with my girlfriends the day prior after ISR came up over breakfast, which caught me off guard more than anybody because I haven’t cried about it in a long time. I think sometimes it just hits the right nerve, and I’m flooded with emotions about the severity of that situation. I think “getting it out” at the lake with my close friends was good prep for the interview because I was able to put emotion aside and just tell the story. The last thing I wanted was to be emotional on camera!

Here’s the segment if you’d like to watch! I filmed the clip below because I wanted to include the commentary from the anchors afterwards. They mentioned some really great points that are so incredibly important to us, so I wanted to make sure that that portion was included.

PS: About the girls’ ISR experience & the story we never thought we’d have to tell