After a morning of laboring at home and carrying on about our day we thought it wise to head towards the hospital. Here is the rundown of how the day went…

Myself, Nathan, my girls, my doula and a lovely friend who was helping to look after the girls during labor all arrived at hospital registration at about 3:40/ 4 pm. I was found to be at 4 cm with fluids intact and debated weather or not to stay at the hospital or to head back home.

Since everyone deemed me a “wild card” in terms of birth predictability and also because I tend to quickly go from minor dilation to transition we thought it best to stay at the hospital and to get settled in a bit while things continued to progress. Everyone went to get a bite to eat just before 5pm leaving Nathan and I to rest and mentally get in the birthing zone a bit. I put my birthing tunes on and laid down to really relax and find my birthing peace. Contractions continued though my resting. My water broke spontaneously at 5:07 pm.

My doctor arrived at the hospital to check in with me but had an errand to run, I seemed relaxed and in a good groove so he reported he’ll be back shortly. Everyone returned from eating to find me with my fluid rupture and back in the birthing swing of things.

The nurse wanted to check me and report back to my doctor about my progress. I was found to be 8 cm. Hubby says that the nurse went to find my cervix and basically just turned on her heels, removed her gloves and went to tell my doctor to get here ASAP.

I was unfazed and showered a bit, got to feeling pushy and kind of gently went with the sensation to push despite my doctor not being there. After my shower I got back to the bed, had another check where an anterior cervical lip was found that was still hanging on and preventing full dilation.

We played with some positions to open the pelvis and move past the lip. I tried to pee on the toilet but had no success. Additionally, I was practically unable to get of the toilet with how fast and hard the contractions were coming there. After help from Nathan and my doula, I was propelled back to the bed where I finally got to squatting on the bed with the squat bar. Then my pushing technique was critiqued and ramped up a bit in a rather memorable little chat with my doctor.

Nathan got some great pictures of my little heated chat with the doctor. When your doctor leads with the phrase “now you are probably going to want to punch me but…” you know it’s gonna get interesting right? Two insane pushes later …

Grayson Prescott is born

He was born at 7:03 pm on 12/4/13. Weighing in at 9lbs 1 oz (my biggest baby yet!) with a 14 inch head and a total of 21 inches long.

The post Grayson Prescott is born appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

While I’m not live streaming the birth this time (hospital birth remember?), I know everyone is waiting to hear about the labor developments so I’ll update you while I am here at home laboring before we head to the hospital.

Labor began this morning (39 wks & 3 days pregnant) as I was getting the girls on track for heading off to school. I was having back to back, painful contractions and back pain. My water hasn’t broken.

I even remarked to my husband “gosh, am I in labor or what?!” at one point while prepping their breakfast but with the many contraction spurts that have gone nowhere since before Thanksgiving I was just over paying attention to things I guess.

So, Nathan went off to work and I continued to get the girls ready for school while drinking my coffee and waking up. By the time I needed to drive Everly to school I knew things weren’t quite like my previous, lame contraction spurts. Anyway, I drove Everly to school with 6-7 min spaced contractions, cam back home with Adalyn and got a bunch of our crap ready for the hospital. As I write this things are about 4-5 min apart.

Nathan is on the way home from work and he is grabbing Everly from school, my doula is on the way over to my place and then we’ll all try to determine when we want to head to the hospital

I’ll update this post as I have things to share and if I’ve got the ability to do so, so stay tuned.

We are going to meet our little guy soon!

The post I am in labor now! appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

I’m the first to admit to feeling DONE with pregnancy towards the end. For starters, I’ve never been a glowing pregnant woman that loves being pregnant. Pregnancy is a pain in the butt among other things, it is hard and inconvenient. Sure It’s also quite amazing but that doesn’t make it less of a pain, for me.

Of course I’d love to have the baby now if he was ready to come and the thought of waiting till 42 weeks to have the baby is a hellish thought.

I am feeling physically maxed out, totally ready for the labor and delivery to take place. Plus, the holidays are just ahead and it would be convenient to have a baby BEFORE the holiday madness begins but you wont find me inducting the baby without real serious medical necessity.  Here are some reasons why in this handy infographic:

So, in the meantime I’ll just be over here all achey, done with pregnancy, sometimes pissy and anxiously awaiting the onset of natural labor… 

The pregnancy updates:

I am few days shy of 38 wks pregnant and I was just called a “pregnancy rule follower” where fundal height and health stats are concerned. LOL, nobody ever calls me a rule follower so this made us chuckle a bit.

Also, I’m up 6lbs in TWO weeks, topping the scales at 137.4 pounds at 37 weeks 5 days (this should be good material for those forum crap talkers of mine, ha, ha.). But really, considering the weight gain it is no wonder I’ve been hurting more and moving slower these last few weeks!

We managed to survive the tornado risks last week, actually our area really lucked out compared to the areas around us. We also missed out on the small earthquake that happen this week in the state just next door. The weather sure has been wonky lately! Luckily, it’s not causing me early labor. My cervix is nice and long as well as closed, which is good sign for keeping the baby in for the full 40 weeks.

I’m on doctors orders to NOT have the baby on Thanksgiving (since the doctor. will be far away on a family trip). It’s really nice to have a doctor. that is telling you honestly about their personal plans and not recommending an induction in conjunction with those plans just so the birth isn’t missed. Honestly, I’m not worried that our doctor will miss the birth, especially because I’m not really that attached to the idea of needing anyone to birth this baby. 

Loved ones are sure getting antsy for the birth to happen, the emails and calls are rolling in these days. While we won’t be live streaming this birth, we promise to update the blog as soon as we can about labor beginning and about baby’s arrival. Stay tuned.

The post Baby brother is still cooking?! 38 week pregnancy updates and thoughts on induction. appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

BOTH girls slept in our room last night. They  were so restless & anxious they couldn’t fall asleep, even after some warm magnesium “tea” (aka Natural Calm) and some time to unwind in their room. Eventually we let them come to our room where they didn’t sleep much. They weren’t playing or anything, just laying there awake… tossing and turning. his is super uncharacteristic of them. We didn’t sleep much either and I was even anxious and wide awake for some unknown reason.

“Spontaneous delivery is related to barometric pressure: Many studies have shown that changes in the weather affect health. In the field of obstetrics and gynecology, several events have been empirically shown to be related to the weather. Labor pain is controlled by the autonomic nervous system and various hormones, and is expected to be influenced by the weather and environmental changes. Several studies have been conducted on the relationship between delivery and barometric pressure, which shows constant changes with changes in weather, but there is no generally accepted view on this.” Read the study performed on this here.

Right now, I’m NOT having signs of baby coming (I’m 37 weeks pregnant) so I’m thinking it is the likely just the weather making us all weird today?! Or it could always be the weather and the baby?! Should I expect labor to begin in a tornado tonight? My doula will love reading this. My pessimistic recognition of things makes her nervous I think. Who knows what is going on… but it is feeling very strange today.

I think we’ll just spend the day cocooned up on the couch waiting for word of increased weather risks and seeing how the day plays out. Whatever will be, will be… 

Have you ever experienced a labor (yours or a loved ones) that seemed to be influenced by the weather? How did it play out?

The post On severe weather and babies being born… appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

Year after year I hear about…

• People that insist on hosting a holiday celebrations but whom refuse to acknowledge an attending family member’s food allergy or food preference.
• People that downright un-invite you to events because of your crunchy preferences or food requests.
• People that accost you at events for parenting choices.
• People that just ridicule you behind your back.
• People having to prepare their own meals to take along to events where eating choices, needs or food allergies aren’t considered by the host.
• Children being slipped no-no foods, drinks or toys behind parents backs just to make the parents angry.
• Children being snubbed because of their parents crunchy choices about foods or toys.

While I don’t usually have to deal with meshing our own crunchy beliefs with family members around the holidays (since we live so far away from all of them and we celebrate by ourselves) but I do get my share of online “crunchy hating” or “crunchy flaming” so I can relate…

Crunchy flaming: happens when someone hates on or attacks (is flaming) a crunchy person for their crunchy ways.

Apparently October 30th & 31 were popular days for my blog according to my site stats notifications. So I peeked at what posts and back links were driving so much random traffic. Turns out some crunchy hating (that can be seen on: http://bit.ly/1ckq0ud as of right now) brought some 500 new hits to my site on Halloween… but I’m not mad. Just mildly curious sort of amused. Here is a screenshot of the above link in case it is removed for some reason:

LOL, I’m so trendy I guess… Who knew!? Better yet, who really cares?

Apparently a number of people do…

I have a theory or two about crunchy flaming… What never ceases to amaze me is how people react to what you are doing, like you are doing it only to judge and shame them or something. There is often such rage and offense behind people’s actions or words. Somehow people get so darn offended because then they actually have to face the fact that they themselves are also making key choices about things and they have to reconcile their own hangups about those things.

It reminds me of a loved one’s response to my birth experience having Everly. Nathan was present for Everly’s birth and very involved in the lengthy birth process. Anyway this loved one didn’t have similar birth experiences, her husband wasn’t involved… possibly not even present for her deliveries… and this made her feel certain things that she later just heaped on me in an unrelated attack. We later discussed this in great detail. I was the living, breathing representation of what she never knew she was missing in her births and that wasn’t easy for her at the time I guess. So she dumped a heap of negativity on me about the first thing she could find.

My recent online crunchy flamer has said:

“I like to think of myself as pretty open to some crunchy, hippie choices (I’m vegetarian, my primary doctor is a naturopath, someday I plan on an unmedicated birth)… but she’s having her two under-5 kids in the delivery room?! It’s their “full disclosure parenting style”. Were the kids present when the baby was conceived, too?“

I personally LOVE that my two daughters wont ever fear childbirth or have to learn the very basics about breastfeeding should they ever choose to take the same paths I have. I am exposing them to these things that I wasn’t exposed to and was therefor ignorant of. My girls wont be ignorant because they get to witness these key things for themselves.

I’ve shared the above crunchy hating experience with you today because I know for a fact several of my friends are about to endure similar crunchy hating as families come together for Thanksgiving and the winter holidays…

Keep your head up and let it run off your back.

Regardless of the reasons why people crunchy hate I just try to remind myself that we’ve arrived at our decisions about various things after much contemplation, research, personal experience and weighing of the pros and cons. Weighing the opinions and possible judgements of others usually isn’t part of the decision making process nor should it be, so the views in response to what choices have been made are basically irrelevant.

…and if someone wants to genuinely and maturely talk about the reasoning behind choices and decisions I’m sure you are like me and feel willing to have a conversation with them. But please don’t let people make you feel like you need to defend each of your choices or decisions! If those people were really interested in knowing your true heart and mind they wouldn’t be attacking you with hate and negativity.

Maybe at a later time they will come around and be open to having a mature conversation about their concerns or questions but maybe they wont, and that is okay too.

Just focus on what you can control and let the rest go.

How have you found your own successes in battling crunchy flaming or crunchy hate?

The post “Crunchy hate” and flaming, how do you deal during the holidays? appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.