Cora's Birth Story

 

 

Name:  Cora Lynn

Weight:  9 lbs 11 oz

Height:  21 1/4 inches long

Date:  July 27, 2012

Time:  6:02 A.M.

 

Being pregnant during this dry (very dry--we suffered a terrible drought) and hot (very hot) summer was very trying at times for me especially when it came to my job.  All year we had been planning our SDSU IPM Field School for Agronomy Professionals which was planned and publicized for July 26 and 27, 2012 and I was to be a featured speaker with one of the featured topics.  With my due date so close to the Field School I made arrangements for a back-up speaker/s just in case I was able to make it.  I went down to the Field School on July 26 to assist and help out but not to be the main speaker.  It was very hot that day and they sent me home early and told me to stay out of the heat and to not come down the next day for fear of me having the baby out in the field.


Our daycare was closed on July 27, so we were very lucky, fortunate, etc to have my mother-in-law come and spend the evening with us on Thursday and to watch the kids on Friday while Dave and I both went to work.


I had been having off and on contractions the past week and a half and was dilated to a "3" at my apointment on Tuesday, July 24th.  My contractions continued off and on throughout the week so I really wasn't expecting anything.  Well, boy was I wrong about that and luck was sure on our side.  I had trouble sleeping on Thursday night and about  3 in the morning I woke up with contractions.  I was able to walk, talk, breathe through them but I woke Dave to tell him.  He asked if my water broke and I said no and he said well I think we are ok to go back to sleep.  He was pretty tired so I agreed with him.  I laid in bed waiting for my water to break.  At 4:30 a.m. I woke Dave and told him that my contractions were very regular, coming one on top of the other and were about 3-5 minutes apart.  Dave said he was going to take a shower and than we would go in to the hospital.  Well, he watched me work through a contraction and decided that we should get our things, wake Grandma to tell her where we were going and that we should head in right away. 

We arrived at the E.R. entrance to the hospital at 5:15 a.m.  The admitting labor and delivery nurse who was bringing me up to triage had a worried look on her face.  When we got there her eyes were wide open and I was shaking through my contractions that the triage nurse decided that I did not need to be checked there and that I should just go straight to the delivery room.  By the time I got admitted and got up to the delivery room it was 5:30 a.m.  The hospital was full and there was only one labor and delivery room left, which I got!  I got into my gown, got hooked up to the monitors, and was checked to find out that I was between 8-9 centimeters dilated and my bag of waters were still intact.

The nurse got the doctor and the NICU team because she said we would be having a baby soon.  The doctor came to check me, looked and said, "Yep, you are having a baby" as our baby was already crowning.  Dave thought our delivery doctor was very funny, especially after that comment.  My water broke as Cora Lynn was delivered at 6:02 a.m.

What a fast, amazing delivery!  There was no time for IV antibiotics and all laboring was done at home.  This natural, drug free, fast delivery was definitely an experience I will never forget.  I did not have an episotomy but I did end up with a 2 degree tear.  I also suffered some hemorrhaging due to the fast delivery.  If the bleeding didn't slow down I was going to have to have surgery but luckily I ended up not needing it.  Cora was born with the cord wrapped around her neck and did not breathe for 4 minutes.  It was the scariest four minutes of my life.  Watching them work with her and not being able to do anything about it.  Due to not breathing for four minutes and her lack of vigor Cora was admitted to the NICU for seven days.  Cora is truly our miracle and such a blessing!  We love you so much Cora and we are so thankful we have you!

The Best Part of Summer...

Chizlic Time!!!  Gunnar loves his meat on a stick.  He enjoys helping Dave get everything ready for grilling, watching him grill, and than grabbing for a stick of meat as soon as it is off the grill.  Also, if he doesn't see Dave physically put the garlic salt on the chizlic he will demand the bottle of garlic salt and do it himself.  Which is then followed by "better".  Love those big blue eyes Honey!!

Need Some Help...

Dave and I need some baby name help.  We are not agreeing on names for a little girl or boy and we are struggling to come up with other names.  We are seeking name suggestions.  So if you have any names that you would like to share with us we would be interested in hearing them.  We each have our lists of names that we like so it's not like we haven't thought about it--we just cannot come to an agreement.  I know that when we have the baby something will just fit and seem right but having a few more names to add to the list would be nice.  Thanks in advance for any baby name suggestions you are willing to share with us.  We appreciate it!

Too Cute...

Every time Gunnar sneezes, coughs, or hiccups he will say "Bless You".  It is just too precious!

Happy 4th of July!

Our little firecrackers!!  They continue to crack us up!!  This is the way they really are when you break out the camera.  Benjamin is all about egging Gunnar on to do a "cheesy" picture and Ada is into posing for the camera.  It is really hard to catch a "natural" Ada photo because if she even senses that you have the camera she will stop what she is doing and strike a pose.

Hamming it Up....

Gunnar continues to be a little ham for the camera!  We don't know why but this is the way he always wears his sunglasses or glasses as he likes to call them.  When we put them on the correct way he takes them off and readjusts them to this look and then quickly shakes his finger and says "better".  What a little ham!  You just can't help but love him and chuckle when you see this photo.

You probably have given up on me/us....

It has been a considerable long time since I last posted on here.  So long in fact that I struggled with signing into Blogger and had to navigate through the new look!  I was afraid our blog was lost and gone forever but the lost is now found.  I am not going to make promises to how frequent I am going to post but I/we are going to try harder this go around!

Now for some of the reasons excuses why we haven't been keeping up.  A lot has happened the last year for us.  I received notice last April that I would be laid off from my job in October.  So the summer was spend stressing out looking for a job.  Also, since most knew I would reapply for a position in the new Extension system I was asked/cornered, etc to do extra projects/work/assignments that would look good if I wanted a job in the new system.  As the summer went on quite a few of my co-workers left for other positions with private Industry or took jobs out of state.  I knew I wanted to apply for the SDSU position but must admit I was also looking out of state and at other entities.  I applied for a very similiar position out of state, made it through the phone interviews, was selected for the 3 face to face seminar interview, and then much to my surprise was offered the position.  It took Dave and I some serious discussion before I ultimately chose to turn down the out of state position.  There were a lot of things that I really liked about that position but it came down to what was best for our family and choosing to stay in SD was what we decided was best for us.

I started my new position with SDSU Extension in late October.  The new positions are a continued work in progress.  We are constantly creating our positions as our job descriptions are changing and developing every day.  It has been both fun and frustrating at the same time.  There is one other person in the state that does what I do.  Our state specialist position is still vacant so that brings some extra challenges for us.  Hopefully we will have this position hired before the start of the New Year.

Right before Christmas we learned that we were expecting our fourth child.  A bit of a surprise and Christmas miracle for us.  Now we are counting down the days until our little bundle of joy arrives.  Like our other children we chose not to find out what we are having so we are waiting for our surprise to come on or around July 30!

More changes have occurred for us.  We decided to try and sell our house.  We listed our house late June 11 and within 48 hours we sold our house!  Talk about a huge stress relief for us but that posed a problem we were not expecting to have.  We were dealing on a house that we were hoping to purchase but that deal did not turn out in our favor.  Now, we have sold our house but have not found a house that we would like to move into yet.  So we are weighing the options of building versus buying.  In the mean time we are moving into an apartment for 6 months.  Dave was completely stressed out about where we would be living.  He kept saying he had never been homeless before.  Now, we were never homeless as our house closing is scheduled for July 27.  We just didn't have that definite plan of where we were moving too.  I can't say that we are excited about living in an apartment but it is short term and I know we can make it through it.

I probably have given some of you information overload so we will stop there for now.  Stay tuned till next time for another crazy life installment update!

If you would like our temporary apartment address please email us at dcstrunk@gmail.com.