Shumway Family: Cora June Shumway

Our beautiful baby girl was born!! Cora June Shumway was born on June 4, 2013 at 4:49 pm. She was 6 pounds, 13 ounces, 20 inches long, with tons of gorgeous dark brown hair, and beautiful blue eyes! She is so incredibly beautiful and sweet.

We had her on a Tuesday. I had had an appointment the previous Thursday and I was 4cm dilated. Over the weekend I felt a couple contractions (no pain) and I was feeling anxious since I was already pretty far along. I had an appointment scheduled for Tuesday, but made another one for that Monday. On Monday I was between 4-5 cm dilated. On Tuesday I went in to the office again to see Dr. Bragg. He measured me and said I was closer to a six. He asked me if I wanted him to go ahead and break my water that day. I was so nervous but I told him yes! I was nervous because the thought of labor is a really scary thing and I was thinking that I was heading toward a very painful day, but I didn't need to be nervous at all! He said to head up to the hospital and that they would be waiting for me. The first thing I did was to call Nathan and tell him to come home from work in Cheyenne, then I called Susan, and finally I called my Mom and told her to hurry and head out from Evanston! I ran home and grabbed my hospital bags and headed up to the hospital. When i got to the hospital I checked in at admitting and headed up to the labor/delivery floor. The nurses set me up with a room and I got changed into my hospital gown. The nurses on staff that day were SO amazing. They were friendly and caring and made me feel super special. They checked my cervix at the hospital and said that I was at a seven. Since I wasn't feeling any contractions they told me they wanted to give me some pitocin until the contractions were stronger, then they would see about the epidural. The next thing they did was to give me an IV, which I was very nervous for after my experience with Calvin, but the nurse got it in on the first try!!! They hooked me up to the monitors and started the pitocin. I kept contracting regularly and fairly strongly, but still wasn't feeling anything. After a few hours Dr. Bragg told the nurses to give me the epidural. He said if they waited too much longer that I might go too fast to get an epidural at all. I got the epidural and fifteen minutes later Dr. Bragg came in to break my water! After my water was broken it only took two hours until Cora was born. I waited two hours, the nurses checked me and said I was at a ten and they called the clinic for Dr. Bragg to come down. When he got there I got all set up in the stirrups. At one point while Dr. Bragg was setting up the nurse let go of one of my legs and it fell and hit Dr. Bragg, I started laughing and he said that the head was almost coming out just from me laughing. A few minutes later I was ready to push. It took two pushes and less than five minutes and Cora was born! It was seriously a dream labor and delivery! No pain, no tearing, fast delivery, the doctor that I wanted... Seriously nothing could have gone better!

When I heard her cry I immediately started crying. There is seriously nothing like hearing that first beautiful cry, I was immediately in love. They cleaned her up and then brought her over to me and I got to hold my sweet girl.

One fun thing about the delivery was that my mom made it just in time. She raced over from Evanston right after I called her and got there ten minutes before I started pushing! It was so amazing to have her there and I was so glad she could see Cora being born!

Cora is such a good girl! From the very beginning she has just wanted to sleep, sleep, sleep. She almost never cries except when she is hungry. She has also been a really good nurser, from the beginning she just latched right on and sucked... HARD! That was one thing I wasn't really expecting was how sore I would get! The first time she nursed she didn't latch on quite right and it was so painful. I was so happy that she was a good nurser though, it made it much less stressful than it was with Calvin. Cora looks exactly like her Daddy!!! She definitely resembles the Shumway side, a lot of people have said that she looks like Susan. She is such a pretty little baby!

Calvin absolutely loves his "baby Cora". When he came to see us in the hospital he wasn't too sure what to think and he sort of just ignored her, but the next day he wanted to hold her and he thought she was so funny! I'm so glad he loves her, she just fits in to our family like she has always been here!