She ended up taking the Adiri BPA Free Natural Nurser Bottles I won via a blog/ twitter contest back in May.

Unfortunately I hadn’t pumped that much milk the night before so the bottle didn’t fill her up, she did drink all the milk that was in it though and I breastfed her afterward to be sure her tummy was full.

It took N about an hour of her fussing and refusing before she was tired enough to doze off in his arms. Once she was dozing he could get her to drink the bottle.

It’s a good thing she’s getting the hang of occasional bottle feeding because I have some all day weekend rehersals coming up with the colorguard and N will be home with E the entire time, ideally He’ll be able to bottle feed her while I am off teaching all day. Woot, she wont starve!

Also, we bought Everly this Cradling Bouncy Seat and to our surprise she like it very much! It’s nice to be able to spend time with her without having to hold her the whole time.

Oh and we dealt with some very maddening health insurance/ birth cost crap today. Remember how I had a 4th degree tear after Everly was born?

Well I transported to the local hospital for stitches since a 4th degree tear is a bit more complex to repair than anything the midwives had done.

Normally they can stitch up minor tears but since I tore straight through they wanted a surgeon to do the repair work to insure all the muscles and tissue were repaired properly, you know so I wouldn’t leak and have resulting lack of control down there…

Anyway, we paid $3500 (100% out of pocket) to our midwife for Everly’s birth. That is pretty cheap compared to what it costs to birth in a hospital.

Now guess how much the bill for all my repair work was from the hospital, after insurance discounts and whatnot…

Lets just say the bill is about 52% of what the total cost for Everly’s birth was. Isn’t that crazy? It just goes to show how super inflated hospital & insurance billing is compared to paying a alternative provider directly without the hospital or insurance involved. I thought medical insurance was supposed to help us financially…

Also, remember how much of a stink my ex OBGYN made about me not getting the RhoGam shot during pregnancy? They told me I was endangering my baby and my future fertility and that it wasn’t really an optional thing…

Well after Everly was born and her blood type was determined I did get the RhoGam shot while I was at the hospital being stitched up.

Insurance will billed for it and apparently between the insurance company and the providing physician out in Tennessee that shot is somehow not deemed “a medical necessity” and insurance is now refusing to pay for it. Nice huh?

The post Small victories and insurance battles… appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

Her Apgar scores were 9 at 1 min & 10 at 5 min, which is great. She was feeding like a champ right after birth too, they placed her on my chest right after she was out and she found the nipple no problem. I was even feeding her as they wheeled me through the hospital doors at 3am for my repair work. I suffered a 4th degree tear that is very unusual for Farm births and homebirths in general.

A surgeon came in and stitched me up good. I specifically asked how many stitches I was receiving, the surgeon laughed and said he’d lost count and that it’s probably better that way. Basically we got there at 3am and didn’t leave till about 6am. I got lots of stitches. N, Pamela and Everly napped while they worked on me.

We also had Everly’s cord blood tested (to get her blood type) and I received my RhoGam shot while we were there since it turns out Everly is not RH negative like me. I was also prescribed some antibiotics for the tear. Basically I tore all the way through (if you know what I mean) so they were worried about anal bacteria and vaginal bacteria combining and infecting my stitches among other things.

I was not given any pain meds though, just taking Tylenol when I am hurting. I am supposed to be staying in bed with baby for 10 days, per Pamela and the surgeons orders. I am also taking arnica 30x for muscle soreness and trauma healing. I don’t feel incapable of carrying on though so staying in bed is hard.

Basically my pushing phase was super slow to start and then went super fast at the end. We tried all sorts of different positions to get her past my bones. I was laying back in bed, then went to the birthing chair, labored in the shower with N, tried squatting, pulling on a door handle, on hands and knees, kneeling face down on the bed and finally tried pushing while collapsed on my knees and elbows with my butt in the air.

Once I got in to my last position things began to go very quickly. From crowning to head out only took 3 min and she practically shot out of me. Nobody expected her to come as quickly as she did. They didn’t even have time to apply counter pressure to the perineum or to show me her head crowning. I am pretty sure I tore because she came out so fast.

Normally in a home birth situation they have you pushing as hard as you can until you begin to crown, once crowing begins they have you pant through the contractions and go real slow so you can avoid tearing. Unfortunately this didn’t happen in my case and I am certain it had to do with the fact that I made so much fast progress in the end.

Anyway I started pushing and was fully dilated at 10:44pm, she crowned at 1:12am and her head was out by 1:15am. One min later her body was out and I was holding her. It all happen super fast and the pushing part was my least favorite part because I felt like I wasn’t making good progress and that I was doing it all wrong. It turns out it was the positions that were working against me and making things seem like they weren’t progressing.

The contractions were much easier for me to deal with as I had found a way to “get in the zone” and relax through them. I listened to my tranquility music and Tibetan singing bowl music on my iPod during this phase, it lasted about 8 hours. N said everyone was amazed that I hardly made a peep until the last half hour of birth when the molding and crowning was taking place.

All in all I am very pleased with my birth experience and would totally do it the same way again. Pamela was great and N was a champ too. He never really left my side. From the moment he arrived back at The Farm until I was back home and stitched up. He even looked down there and got to see her coming out which we had previously discussed and he wasn’t sure he wanted to do.

Oh, and Pamela even wrote a song about Everly that she played for us on her guitar before we headed home. The song was beautiful and made me cry. We planted the placenta on her land under an evergreen tree, it’s the Everly Evergreen tree now. It seemed fitting since we birthed Everly in Pamela’s cabin on The Farm and it will forever be an important place for us.

Everly’s birth was an amazing experience and it truly was a right of passage for us. We are on cloud 9 now and wouldn’t have done it any other way!

Oh, if you want to read N’s version of Everly’s birth story (Pt. 1) & N’s version of Everly’s birth story (Pt. 2) are now up over at his blog! I am still working on my long version of the birth story. Posted my short summary version already, it can be read here.

The post Everly is now 5 days old: A look back on the birth experience. appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

This morning we had a “meeting” with my OBGYN about the blood glucose test, we also broke the RhoGam shot news to her and basically she argued with us and said that the RhoGam shot wasn’t optional.

She had nothing to tell us about statistics or research on the benefits of the shot, just that it was a routine preventive measure that everyone needs to get. I told her we weren’t provided with enough info about the benefits and risks so we did our own research and came to the conclusion that the risks do not out weight the benefits. She refused to accept that we’ve done our research and we don’t want it. She provided us with a very general, “for dummies” pamphlet about the RhoGam shot.

Amazingly she had the lab tech draw N’s blood right then and there, just to see what his blood type was… as a means of convincing us to get the shot. We asked about this at the beginning of my pregnancy and she said his blood type wasn’t that important and that a blood draw wasn’t necessary. I am dreading receiving the bill for that blood draw, since it is not covered by insurance till our deductible is met. At least we’ll know N’s blood type though.

We’ll know N’s blood test results on Monday but we are not going to continue prenatal care with them. We are still declining the shot and we did get out of the second blood glucose test… She fed us some bull about the Glucola test and gave vague diet modification ideas that weren’t helpful… She wouldn’t give me a prescription for blood glucose test strips like I asked. Again she gave the “well it’s not really necessary” line.

I just don’t want to deal with the added stress of seeing this OBGYN anymore. Especially since after our little discussion she took it all out on my belly! She wanted to do an external examination, measure my belly and hear Tater’s heartbeat. While she was checking Tater’s position she was quite rough and actually she really of hurt me! I was crampy and having BH contractions while she was being rough and the pain continued for a good half hour after the visit. I told her about the pain and she said, yeah that is normal…

NO! It is not normal, when Pamela examines me I don’t cramp or hurt, ever! I am just done dealing with her and her demeanor. It stresses me out, it’s a waste of my time and we don’t need her anyway. Once we get N’s blood test results back we are just going to cancel our future appointments and go our separate ways, thanks goodness!

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Oh, and for those of you in Indiana who are also interested in homebirth options I have some great news! A midwife licensure bill went to the House Health Committee (Midwifery Licensure Bill 508) and just passed through the committee! This is good progress and gets us pretty close to getting midwives legalized here! For more information on the push for Indiana midwives checkout this page.

Now we are gearing up for the third reading in the house (the full house hearing) and those people in Indiana who are in support of midwives or who want to preserve a woman’s choice of birthing options need to speak up and let your views be heard about this today. Your representatives MUST hear from you so that they know this issue matters to their constituents, so contact them today! You can find out who to contact on this page: http://www.in.gov/apps/sos/legislator/search/

Here are some things you can mention when you contact them:

• CPMs are professionals, well-trained, skilled in neonatal resuscitation and other life-saving skills.
• Homebirth in low risk pregnancies is safe, especially when a trained and skilled midwife is attending it!
• Homebirth is legal and having midwives regulated will provide a safety net for the consumers who choose homebirth.
• Women deserve the right to choose the best birthing option for them!
• Not licensing CPM’s eliminates a vital option and backs women up against a wall.

Sign up for Inmwsupporters@yahoogroups.com or join Indiana Push for Midwives for alerts and action emails.
Idaho got their bill passed this year, and the governor signed it Monday.  That makes the 26th state.  Let’s make Indiana the 27th.  It is within our reach now!

The post Sitting in the nasty basement waiting for the storm to pass and pushing for the Indiana Midwifery Licensure Bill appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

For those of you who didn’t already know we planned to spend my birthday weekend in Tennessee. It was our last appointment with our midwife out at The Farm until we come to stay and deliver Tater in early June.

We figured it would also be kind of nice to plan a mini vacation for that weekend since it will be basically the last time we travel for leisure as just the two of us before Tater arrives.

N did have a nice dinner planned for me at The Melting Pot in downtown Nashville on Saturday night. We saw Pamela for our prenatal appointment Saturday afternoon then we stayed at the very unique Hotel Preston that evening.

On Sunday we headed out to the Cheekwood Botanical Garden in Nashville, we also stopped by The Mall at Green Hills to buy me a nice maternity top since the one I brought wouldn’t button around my boobs anymore.

I found 2 at Macy’s for $16.00 that weren’t even maternity tops but fit great, they were my birthday splurge. We also went by the Whole Foods near the mall to pick up a few grocery items and some calcium supplements per Pamela’s suggestion.

Like I said we had a blast together and we captured so many great belly shots for the scrapbook and our baby announcements (that I am not allowed to share with you just yet because they are a surprise!).

The photos I am allowed to share are of The Farm and I figured I would tell you more about the appointment too. First here is a slide show of the photos:

We were late to our appointment again which was a bummer, being late is also a big anxiety trigger for me so that wasn’t pleasant for us. Plus poor Pamela was waiting for us. We got lost on the way there once again thanks to GPS and internet directions.

I think we’ve finally figured out the correct directions there so N will be able to navigate his way there confidently once my labor has begun. It would really suck for him to be lost while I am in labor!

Anyway, once we arrived at The Farm Clinic I got to pee (finally) while N and Pamela talked. N ratted me out about my anxiety and stress levels these days then the appointment got underway.

All checked out normal. I am still weighing in at about 123.5 and my blood pressure is good but I’ve been warned to start laying more and to stop feeling bad about it. Apparently, laying down (preferably on the left side) means better overall circulation which has a major impact on kidney function while pregnant.

Blood pressure and kidney function go hand in hand so if my blood pressure is to stay at a good level my kidneys need to have adequate blood flow which means I need to lay down more… Like I’ve got time to lay! I am making a big effort to lay my ass down more now so don’t worry.

I am also working to drink more water and I’ve added a calcium supplement because calcium and magnesium also go hand in hand with lowering blood pressure. Blood pressure is basically the only potential concern for us right now. We are trying to be proactive so that we don’t have problems later.

We heard Tater’s heartbeat again and she checked out fine, N was having a great time taking video and snapping photos the whole time. We all got to chat about what is going on with life. We told Pamela about the move and all the stuff that is going on for us right now.

My OBGYN said I could lift stuff and not worry about a weight limit on lifting as long as it didn’t hurt. Pamela advised me not to lift stuff during the move at all. She said major lifting could lead to premature labor and that it is better to be safe than sorry, which we totally agree with.

We also talked and have ultimately decided to hold off on getting the RhoGam shot until after Tater is born (if her blood type warrants it). Having the injection while pregnant is just something we are not comfortable doing. We are more concerned with safeguarding Tater now as opposed to safeguarding my future fertility.

Oh and we did talk about the game plan for possible early labor and when to call Pamela or head to The Farm. Right now I am having some of my first practice contractions, fun!

All in all we are feeling good about the pregnancy progress, confident and ready for the last leg of pregnancy! It was a great weekend for us and now we are looking ahead to next weekend with anticipation. We get the keys to our new place, yay!

The post Summertown & Nashville Tennessee weekend recap, fun times! appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.