night laboring
July 9, 2008
AKA: LAME ASS STOP-AND-GO LABOR
i labored all night last night. by the time the kids got up this morning, i had decided it was just about time to call my husband and my midwife. and then…everything stopped. just stopped. no slowing, no gradual decline, just- boom, done. i had practically no contractions all day, in spite of running around with my kids and visiting mom in law all day. shortly after mil and hubby’s nephew went back to their hotel after dinner, i started having a few again. they really picked up around eleven, and i had to get out of bed because it hurt to lie down. they were about six minutes apart then, and are about four minutes apart now, three hours later. and i’ve been to the bathroom about twelve times in that three hours. that’s pretty irritating.
i’m too tired to do any encouraging (ie walking, squatting, what have you), but they seem to be getting closer anyway. see, that last contraction was only three minutes after the one before it. i wonder if that’s going to keep up. oh, yep it is!
i almost want to go fill up the pool, but then i think “what a waste, you know this is just going to stop in the morning!” i also don’t want to call my midwife, as she lives quite some distance away, and i’d hate for her to drive that far in the middle of the night only to have to drive back for clinic visits when this stops.
i talked to a midwifery student friend today, and we came up with a couple of theories. two involve my body responding to the presence of different people as a threat worthy of the “flight” response, and the third is that this is just happening to make things easier on baby and me…that it will take several nights of laboring to slowly bring the baby down and out, rather than one long, hard labor experience. see, if you lump it all together and don’t count the “down times”, i’ve labored for a good 18 hours or so this week.
ok, i’m going to go see if a shower will help…my back is killing me, and a hands and knees position is making me feel icky. i don’t know what else to do without waking dale, and i don’t want to do that either…he still has to go to work if this stops again.
