Announcing: Cora Susan Schuetzler!

Cora was born on April 17 at 12:34 PM, about a week and a half early. I was not prepared for her to come yet, since I was kind of counting on her being late (Hyrum was a week and a half late). My contractions started the evening before, but they were only slightly painful and not regular, so I just thought they were Braxton-Hicks.

I was even able to get to sleep, but around 1 am, they came back with a vengeance. I kept timing them until around 6 am, when they were getting so painful I could hardly stand it. My contractions never got regular, though. They would be two minutes apart, then ten. But thank goodness they took me anyways! It might be because I was crying in the hallway about being in so much pain. I honestly wondered if I was going to make it. Thank goodness Natalie told me to tell them that I wanted an epidural right away, because I think that may have moved them to get me pain meds a little sooner. Man, I LOVE epidurals! I am just too much of a wimp to do labor and delivery any other way. And I am definitely OK with that.

Once the epidural was in, the labor was great. I wasn’t progressing as fast as they wanted so they gave me some pitocin, and just a couple hours after that, Cora was born. The nurse wasn’t even going to check me for another half hour, but I told her that I was feeling some pressure down there, like a maybe I should push pressure, and when she checked, baby’s head was right there. I pushed through one contraction and then I had to stop so they could run and get the doctor. Once the doctor was all ready and suited up, I pushed through one more contraction and out she came!

I got to see her come out this time which was actually really cool, and the reason why I am crying in the first picture. When she came out she was really purple, like a little purple potato, so I was a bit worried, but they said it was normal and she would be fine. And she was :)

She was peeing as she came out, and then pooped on her way to the warming table, so she had the whole bowel thing going on pretty early. I thought right away that she looked a lot like Hyrum did when she came out. And I was just amazed at how fast the whole thing happened!

She weighed 7 pounds, 5 oz. and was 19 inches long. We love our beautiful little girl!