Guess who's here...

Yes, I know. I haven't blogged in - like - eons. And here's why:

This is the part where I say to everyone "oh, I'll do better from here on out, I'll blog daily again, really, I will. It's my new-years resolution in fact... yada yada yada" except I'm not going to because I'm more of a realist than anything these days. I know as well as you all do that there is even LESS of a chance that I will blog now, than there was that I would blog whilst pregnant. 

Whew. That was cathartic. Now onto cuter things.

Cora Grace Kathleen Hnosko was Born on Tuesday, December 20th at 10:46am - a full ten days before her due date (halleluia!) She weighed 6lbs 14oz, and measured 19.5" long..She is everything her brother was NOT as a newborn. She sleeps almost all day (and as a result is up a lot at night, but not in the screaming angry baby way, more of a "I'm awake and happy" way. It's cute) and is content to sit in a swing, or a bouncy seat and observe the view. It shocks me really. If you knew Levi as a newborn, it would shock you too. She sleeps A TON!

 In case you are interested in this sort of thing (and because I really should type it out before I forget it) Here's Cora's abbreviated birth story:

On the morning of Monday the 19th, something was different. I can't put it into words, but something was in the air - enough so that I called my friend Rachael, who was on "babywatch" to take Levi off our hands if we needed to make a dash to the hospital, and Joyce, my doula, to give them a heads-up. It wasn't until around 5pm that contractions started. I say "contractions" but in my opinion they were really just strong braxton hicks. They were wimpy to say the very least. I went to bed that night and tried to sleep them off.

I awoke around 1am and couldn't get back to sleep - not because the contractions hurt, but because they were annoying, and had moved closer together (about 3 minutes apart). I called my support team (Midwife, Doula, Rachael) and in a couple hours time we were on our way to the hospital at my midwife's request.

I was a mere 3 centimeters dilated. Hardly anything to be excited about. I was blessed with a delightful labor and delivery nurse (Jane) who also happens to be a midwife. She totally left me alone, which is exactly what I wanted. For the next three hours I paced and paced and paced. At this point my baby girl was ROP (Right occiput posterior) also known as mostly-sunny-side-up. NOT a comfortable position to deliver in. I knew the more I moved around, the better chance I had that she'd move into an Anterior position, but nothing was a sure bet. So, I mixed it up a little spending some of my time on my feet, and some on my hands and knees, hoping gravity would shift this baby around.

Somewhere in there I lost track of time. Tunnel vision came upon me and I wasn't speaking in sentences any longer. Remembering how long and arduous Levi's labor and delivery were I kept reminding myself that I had a lot longer to go, and that the pain still had much worse to get. This was only the small stuff, I had to keep it together because the worst is yet to come.

It must have been sometime around 10am when my water broke. That was something I never felt with Levi (I had an epidural around 9 cm and they broke my water just before he came out) and man, was it a weird sensation. At that point labor became intensely difficult. I struggled to focus. My midwife came to see how I was doing and, because I requested not to be "checked", she estimated I was around 6cm dilated based on where I was initially, how much time had passed, etc. She left the room to go check on another patient.

I was exhausted. I laid down on the bed for the first time that day. It was likely no longer than 10 minutes after my midwife left that I felt Cora turn from Posterior to Anterior (HOORAY!) and immediately my whole core began to push her out. I felt almost like a fly on the wall as my body did all the work for me. It was supernatural. I simply don't have the words to describe how relieving it felt to push through all that pain. Strange, I know, but that really was the best part of labor although I had feared it would be the worst.

 Now, mind you, my midwife was down the hall. Levi, my firstborn was out in 30 minutes, so I knew this would be quick. my midwife scurried back into the room, and threw on her gloves (no time for her gown) and with two pushes Cora was out!

She didn't cry. She was rather blue. So after a quick sit on my chest, off she went. Turned out that with her quick arrival she hadn't coughed up all the junk that had accumulated in her lungs over the past 9 months. Not only that, but she had a belly FULL of meconium (poop). Needless to say, she was in the nursery under observation for low O2 saturation for the better part of 3 hours. It was heartbreaking to see her lying there and not be able to snuggle and nurse her, but by the grace of God she came out of it and returned with us to our room.

 All in all, this was a fantastic birth experience for me - everything Levi's birth wasn't. It was healing. My recovery was 100% faster, and my post partum mental state an even keel. Nursing has also been completely unproblematic, and absolutely wonderful. Praise be to the LORD! Many of you know the trouble Levi and I had with nursing, and let me tell you, every baby is different, and boy am I glad.

And I'll have to leave it at that as I have not one, but two little ones who should soon be waking. Check facebook for more adorable pictures!