Alexander (Xander) Rider Buhr was born on August 4th (right on his due date)! As Gigi says, “He’s the first Buhr or Ruedebusch to be on time for anything!”
I had my first contraction at 6pm on Sunday evening (August 1st). I had regular contractions through the evening and into the next day and night. To stay and labor at the Sage Femme birth center in San Fran, where we were planning to have the baby, you need to be in active labor (progressively dilating and contractions about 2-3 minutes apart). At one point late on Monday night (about 2am), I was having contractions about 2-3 minutes apart and thought I was in active labor. We went to the birth center at about 3:30am. Serena examined me and determined that I was at about 4.5 cm and 75% effaced. I continued to labor at the birth center for 11.5 hours, but while I was there, my labor pretty much stalled out, and in the early afternoon on Tuesday, Serena (our midwife at Sage Femme) told us we would need to return home until I was in true active labor. I was crushed. At this point, I’d been in labor for about 45 hours, and there was no end in sight. One positive thing was that my Mom had arrived on Tuesday and met us at the birth center toward the end of our stay there, so at least she would be at the birth (unless I was in labor for two more weeks, which at that point seemed totally possible!)
So we drove home, and I continued to labor at home that evening and into the next day. I was able to sleep between contractions, especially in the tub and in the bed that night I slept between every contraction even though they were only 5 minutes apart. Martin would wake up with me and help me get through each contraction. It was getting hard on him too, though, and at a couple of points, as I was moaning as loud as I could through a contraction, Martin just kept on sleeping until I hit him on the arm and yelled at him that “I NEED YOUR HELP THROUGH THIS ONE!” Another time I woke him up to get me some water, and he jumped up, put his hand on my back, and said, “You’re doing great! Just breathe and try to relax!” It was really funny.
On Wednesday morning, August 4th, since I was going to be laboring at home, we decided to have the dogs boarded. I missed them as they were also my labor companions up to that point, but on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, they seemed much more concerned about me and were becoming a distraction. Nikita even bit me a couple of times Tuesday night during particularly intense contractions. By Wednesday morning, my spirits were getting low. I kept waiting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but instead just kept seeing more and more tunnel (at this point I was about 60 hours into the labor). I mentioned the word “epidural” a few times but wasn’t yet serious about it. I just knew it was the easy way out, and at that point, it was very tempting. I wasn’t sure how much more of the pain I could take, and more importantly, I just had no idea how much longer the labor was going to last. I also recall saying that Xander was going to be an only child unless we adopted and that I was never going through labor again. Cory, Vinh, and Geneva also arrived Wednesday morning and got to the house around 11am. Having Cory there as support lifted my spirits greatly, and all my thoughts of getting an epidural ceased.
Jessica, a student midwife from Sage Femme came over at around 11:30am to give me some emotional support more than anything else. She helped me through contractions in the tub and massaged my back as I lay on the bed. Martin went upstairs to take a nap since I had Jessica, Cory, and my mom to help in the meantime. Jessica had only been at our house for a couple of hours, and I was still having erratic contractions between 4-9 minutes apart, when I felt I needed to go to the bathroom… While sitting on the toilet trying to go to the bathroom, I suddenly started having the uncontrollable urge to push. Cory and Jessica looked at each other, and Jessica asked me, “Are you pushing?” “I can’t stop!” I replied.
My mom went upstairs to wake up Martin from his nap. He had only been napping for about 45 minutes, which shows how quickly things had changed! Gigi said something like, “Martin, you should get up. We might need to go to the birth center.” Martin was so out of it that he replied, “Should I go too?”
Jessica called Serena (my primary midwife) to ask if she could check my progress. She told Jessica to go ahead and check me. Jessica couldn’t feel the cervix at all, so I was completely effaced and dilated. The baby was finally coming! During every contraction from this point, I was pushing. It was such a relief to use the tension of the contraction to my advantage rather than try to relax through it, which I was trying to do up to that point (a nearly impossible task in my opinion). At that point, we didn’t think we had time to get to the birth center or to a hospital, but Judi (who runs the birth center) told Jessica that we needed to call EMS at a minimum. If we had tried to go to the hospital or birth center, I’m pretty sure I would have given birth on the way! Thankfully, Jessica had brought an emergency birth kit with her, and with EMS on standby in our front yard, we had a perfect but unexpected homebirth! At 3:02pm on August 4, 2010, baby Xander was born at our house in Montara, California!
by Kelly Ruedebusch-Buhr
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
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