The Reiter Report

Michael is in 2nd grade. He has math/science homework for the week. He also has to read 15 min a day and two days a week he has to write 3 sentences to answer a question about what he read. He's getting better at the writing but it's a struggle. He excels at the math and science.

Jane is in Kindergarten and loves every second of it. She brings home tons of pages learning letters and colors, but I'm not sure how much of it is sinking in. She still guesses at a lot of letters or goes through the alphabet to name a letter. She's an excellent copier and learns by ear really well.

George is probably figuring out how to read from tv shows, much like Michael. He's at home with us and has stopped napping. It's disappointing but he does fairly well staying in his room during quiet time. He'll usually make things with blocks. But often, during quiet time, he starts coming to find me over and over and over for some inane question or to show me what he's built. he talks constantly.

Maggie is a supreme 2 yr old. Massively two year old behavior. She is freakishly determined to do what she wants. She will defy us and scream at the top of her lungs when she's upset. This usually happens when the baby is also upset or I'm nursing the baby. Therefore, I am limited in my disciplinary actions. When she's not acting like a total toot, she can be sweet and very funny. She loves playing with anyone. For the last several months, she will take any two objects in front of her (toys, food, pieces of paper, etc.) and start talking them back and forth and making up a fabulous story. She also tries to say prayers with us. It's super cute the way she mutters the general sounds of the prayers then gives a big AAAMEN at the end. Still in diapers, we're slowly working on that.

Baby Judy Pearl is a dream. sweet and smiles and coos at us.

Birth history:

2009: hospital no pain meds, smooth Bradley birth, ~27 hrs labor from bloody show to birth. Probably 12 hrs active labor. 7 lb 13 oz 21 in. Boy

2010: smooth homebirth with Toni Kimpel. 12 hrs total labor for mom, ~6 hrs active. 7 lbs 1.5 oz 20 in. Girl

2011: placenta previa c section delivery at 34 weeks 5 days due to passing some blood. 5 lbs 9.7 oz 20 in. Boy *note: baby totally healthy, out of NICU after 3 nights, came home with mom on 4th day, was over 8 lbs by due date.

2014: VBAC at home with Toni Kimpel. 12-15 hrs total labor, 6-8 hrs active. Possibly a little psychological delay mid-labor from me. 7 lbs 6 oz 20 in. Girl

NOTE: my husband’s name is Tony and the midwife is Toni. You'll need to pay attention to the ‘i’ or ‘y’ on the names. Also, my husband has been our advocate of homebirth ever since reading Dr Bradley’s book during our first pregnancy.

Judy is out! But it wasn't at home. Last Thursday I woke up with contractions. I spent most the day napping with them because Toni said rest eat and drink. After 5, I got up, peed and passed a big gooey mucus plug. I told Toni and she said she'd be on her way. After that I also passed a bunch of fluid. My waters never broke early with the other babies. We sent the kids away. When Toni got here I was only 3cm, and maybe that was after more contractions because I didn't really want to get checked much.

We dealt with labor from 5:30 pm through 3 am Friday morning and I was still 3 cm. We could see meconium in the fluid I was leaking but Toni said as long as Judy's heart rate was ok, we had 24 hrs. Labor stalled in the evening, big time. Around 8 Toni gave me a tincture that maybe got one extra contraction. I tried nipple stimulation, 1 contraction. It wasn't picking up. Toni wanted to try castor oil. So Tony made me a smoothie with banana and frozen strawberries and FOUR TABLESPOONS of castor oil per Toni's instructions. It was like pudding. I ate that around 9 or 9:30. Toni wanted me to lay down and rest before it took effect in the next 2-4 hrs. By the way, up to this point, I felt like I had already emptied my bowels all day long with labor. My butt was raw to the point I was using tucks pads to wipe. 1 hr after the smoothie, it started working. Anything and everything in my gut system was coming out along with lots of liquid. Contractions also picked up some. Especially after midnight. There started to be some really long, intense ones that lasted over a minute and a half. This went on for a few hours and some of them I really felt were so intense they would surely roll into pushing, but they didn't. We were also trying to get Judy to roll from posterior into a better spot, so lots of hand and knees, leaning forward, etc. Toni checked me around 3am. She said her head was down on my cervix but I wasn't much changed. She wanted me to lay down for some contractions to rest and see if Judy would move up off my pelvis some to reshift position. I couldn't stay on the bed. 2 contractions and I was back up. I said I was done with this. I asked Toni really how much I was dilated, she said 3. I was finished. Not crying, or depressed, or disappointed in myself at all. Just fed up.

I was done. Really done. I've done this before. I've had my vbac, done homebirth. I don't feel like I need to do it again. I want this baby out. I want the drugs. I don't want to feel it anymore. I want this baby out as fast as possible and I knew it'd be a c section. “Take me to the nearest hospital and get this baby out because I'm finished.” Toni wanted to give it another couple hours. Tony was also confident in me but when I looked at him with a solid stern calm face and said I'm done, I think he just knew that it wasn't going to happen. So we packed up and left for Scott and white.

One contraction in the car, one in the lobby, at least 2-3 in the room while getting admitted and nurses thumping and thumping on my hands for a vein. OY VEY!! I told them I had tiny veins, I was also massively dehydrated from all the castor oil pooping that had NOT stopped for hours. My mouth was pasty and they weren't going to let me drink because the dr on call "didn't do vbacs." Great, let's go! I told them they'd have to get my vein in my right elbow where I always get my blood drawn. After one wrist attempt and fail, they agreed with me and went for it. Dr finally came and low and behold it is the exact same dr that did my other c section 4 years ago! I said get this baby out, he said section, I said do it. He told the nurses to rush the anesthesiologist here, I was a stat situation.

The final contraction I felt was while getting the spinal. I had my head curled down on a nurse and felt more fluid gush out. When he got Judy out (which was a great moment when I heard her cry) the dr started talking about "all this infection you have in here." I inquired some about it and he just grumbled about us waiting too long to come in after membranes rupturing. He said the placenta was covered with infection, too. Judy was covered with meconium and they pulled 20 mL of it out of her stomach.

I still was able to kiss on her in the OR, I nearly nursed her, she was able to lay on my chest a bit and especially when they wheeled me back to the labor room, she was on my chest because no one is allowed to walk with her in arms. In the labor room I was able to nurse her some colostrum on both sides BEFORE they took her for her IV. They took her blood culture and gave her antibiotics first 48 hrs since the word 'infection' was in the air. I'm ok with that. I still got in her system first. Even after the IV was installed she didn't get the first round of drugs till after I'd nursed her more and I was nursing her every time she got them. Tony was with her getting her IV, it took a while for that, too. A nurse came back to tell me, "she has veins like her momma." Meanwhile, Tony later told me the nurses were saying in the NICU, "her momma is MADE for breastfeeding!"

Her blood culture came back negative after 48 hrs and the nurse removed her IV before those results came back because it had stopped working. My blood work all looked good, too.

As far as the grumblings of the OB about us waiting too long, I asked the nurses what their protocol was on waters breaking. They said they'd monitor and wait 12-24 hrs. I said that's what we were doing. I never registered a temperature or abnormal vitals, and Judy's heart rate was perfectly normal, not dropping or rising whenever Toni checked. I asked if they did anything different seeing meconium. Nope. In fact, the nurses said they're seeing more and more meconium babies as though it's more normal. Mostly because people can't induce or schedule c sections early at 37-38 weeks anymore. So they're seeing more mature babies and lots of them have some meconium. They've even had stained green babies.

So, everything Toni did at home was in agreement with anything they would have done at the hospital. She was pulled out nearly exactly 12 hrs from when my mucus plug and waters passed. Toni suspects that whatever the 'infection' was, it was there before and it caused the membranes to rupture early. I also suspect some sort of placental decline because I was suffering major drops in progesterone in the weeks before labor. Major drops. I haven't had a baby blues feeling yet and my milk is in and it's now 5 full days post partum. I wasn't able to encapsulate the placenta because of the mention of infection. So I'm using the leftovers from previous 2 babies. There's not much, so I'm rationing. But I did take 3-5 the first few days after. I'm sure that's helping with blues, too. Other than the serious pain from the incision, my emotions aren't horrible. But they were horrible for 2-3 weeks before labor began. I was either rage mommy at the kids, or I was sobbing with Tony, or I was some flat mellow in between the last few days. That's why I really think the placenta was just barely holding on at the end.

Staples came out yesterday and Judy is already back over her birthweight. She was 20.5 inches and 6 pounds 15 oz at birth, Friday 7-8-16 (our lowest term baby weight). When we left the hospital on Sunday she was 6, 11oz. Then Tuesday she was 7 lb 4 oz.

We are still awaiting pathology results on placenta. Other than that, we are all doing fine. Toni can still come and do post partum checks on both of us, so we don't have to go anywhere for a while. I’m proud of myself for the labor that happened, I'm also glad we moved to the hospital when we did. For whatever reason, the uterus simply was not working the way it should have. I'm glad I was able to come to that conclusion with clarity on my own, at home, instead of in a rushed situation in a hospital. I'm grateful for Toni’s care and all the tools she tried to get labor to be more effective.