Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard that Favorite Farmer and I, and our other three bambinos, welcomed our newest bundle of joy on October 11. Cora Jane weighed in at 7 pounds 8 ounces and stole all of our hearts within a matter of seconds. It’s already hard to remember what we did before she was here…and what it felt like to get a full nights sleep. Except I looked (and felt) 12 months pregnant so I wasn’t exactly getting a full nights sleep before she arrived, either.
For the few weeks before Cora graced us with her presence, it was pretty obvious we were about to be increasing our house’s occupancy from five to six. As a former boss of mine would say, it took a person longer to walk around me than over the top of me and with that huge burgeoning belly came all the questions, comments and “pets” a pregnant person is somehow expected to endure. While there are the random things said that aren’t exactly what you want to hear right before you give birth, for the most part people are so excited they just want to hear all about the impending arrival. And in our situation, people always want to know what it’s like to welcome a new baby on the ranch.
I’m never really sure how to answer this because I assume it’s pretty similar to bringing a baby home to a house in town but I really have no idea. It seems like life goes on hold for about five days after the baby is born and then, all of a sudden, things sort of pop back to “normal” and you just have this new munchkin tagging along. We deliver in Billings so we didn’t even come home until three days after Cora was born but we were met with a clean house, food from friends and family…and lots of laundry to do because we never find out what sex of baby we’re having ahead of time so we can’t get the clothes ready until after the birth.
Favorite Farmer is really good about taking care of pretty much everything, letting me completely focus on the baby. My parents and my in-laws step in, too, which makes it possible to lie low for a while. Like I said, this lasts for about five days (depending on the time of year it is) and then life seems to go on. Colter needs to go to school, Lizzie needs to go to preschool and Benjamin needs some sort of normalcy so he doesn’t feel like he’s being replaced so we try to get things back into routine fairly quickly. Luckily my deliveries go fairly smoothly so aside from being slower and not being able to be on my feet as much, I can do most things in the house. And with both grandmas close by, the older kids are getting a lot of attention and one-on-one time which makes things easier too.
Where ranch life differs a bit from town life is the simple fact that we don’t get weekends or nights off so if it’s the time of year that’s busy for the ranch, nobody can really call in sick or take a few vacation days off. We can push things off or move things up as best we can and then we just have to go with it. Cora’s due date was five days before our scheduled shipping date this fall, which gets scheduled a long time in advance. Needless to say, we had to move the shipping date back to this coming Thursday. It still isn’t ideal but it gave all of us an extra week to recover and get things situated around the ranch. We also have a passel of friends and family coming in to help with everything from cooking for the big day to helping load trucks. We feel pretty fortunate to live in a community like this!
Cora is 10 days old now and for the most part, it seems like all of us have settled in to a new normal. Colter and Lizzie both had full weeks of school and Benjamin has (knock on wood) decided to give up on his whiny tempertantrums that seemed to pop up shortly after her arrival. Favorite Farmer has been able to spend most of his days outside, readying the corrals and cows for shipping day and helping neighbors do the same in preparation for their big day. I made it to town with all four kids in tow and at the end of running several errands, realized that everyone was still laughing and having fun with each other–not a small feat! I definitely considered it a success.
Bringing a baby home is always a big adjustment and no matter where you live or what your lifestyle is, life is never the same again. It’s a lot of poopy diapers, middle-of-the-night feedings and pre-made food but then you have all the snuggles, smirks and coos and just like that all of the “cumbersome” aspects of having a new baby are quickly forgotten. Nobody can deny the amount of joy a new addition brings to a family and we feel so blessed to be able to do so.
The Kleenex Chronicles 