UPDATE;the story
Well, the hardest part was the not even 4 hours of sleep in over 48 hours....and it wasn't even 4 straight hours...it was an hour here, an hour there, etc..... needless to say I was EXHAUSTED....and to endure pain when that exhausted? UGH!
Well, for those of you that followed my other posts, you know I was having prodromol labor for about 5 weeks! And was really worried about recognizing the real thing....well for that reason it was very difficult to determine when it did actually transfer over to the real thing, but we still had PLENTY of time on our hands. The midwife is calling it a 24hour + labor....not really knowing herself when to say it switched over..... I'm guessing about 27....not sure either....
The contractions DID get much more intense and closer together, but then would subside for about an hour (thus the first hour of sleep), then start up again, again more intense, closer together, etc... In the first 24 hours, I got three hours of sleep....the contractions would subside enough to allow me about 20 min to an hour at a time of sleep, and then start again rather strong....by the time my midwife called ME (I had called her during the night, and she called back with recommendations, then called me again later in the morning....) they were intense, but not as close....only 10 min apart rather than 3-4....she decided to check me out... at that point I hadn't made a lot of progress, but some....and they could tell on the machine that the contractions were a lot closer, they just weren't all as intense.....so she told me to stay around town but I didn't have to stay in the hospital...(we live about 40 min away)....so we went walking....shopping...that sort of thing...for a couple hours and they got more and more intense...by the time we went out for dinner a few hours after my check up with the midwife, I was going nuts trying to breathe through them and not flip anyone out at the restaurant while the contractions got closer and closer....about 3-5 minutes....
after dinner (about 6:30) we called the midwife again....we decided I'd go walking through the 1st floor of the hospital (it was indoors on a cold rainy day) until 8:00 when we would meet her on the OB floor..... so we did that, some contractions I could walk through, most I could not....
when we got to the OB floor she checked me and I was by then to 5 cm but Baby still had not become fully engaged, so though we had at that point said to go ahead and break the water, she couldn't!
She again suggested giving me something to sleep....I declined (wishing later I had not!) so it went on like that....3-4 min apart, rather intense until???? At about 5 in the morning,she was able to break my water, I swore at the time I was giving birth to water....never in my previous pregnancies was there that much...it amazed the midwife too!!! it was about 6 in the morning that I started begging... It was transition time and she kept telling me that...she was sooooo good and so was hubby at making sure I really wanted something for pain, but I knew that even with my second (easiest labor) I had pushed for over an hour....and by that time it had been going on 48 hours of practically no sleep, the pain was by far worse than I could imagine with the pain radiating down my legs, and all I could think of was if this was like my daughter and I had 4 hours of pushing to do (like the first pregnancy of 24 hours of labor) I would never make it.....I seriously doubted my ability to push when I was that exhausted...I had already lost my focus completely during contractions. Nothing I had planned to gain focus was working...Each contraction put me into uncontrollable screaming, etc. ( I peed on my poor husband....anybody else ever do that??? my poor dh....luckily he was wearing shorts and I missed the clothing!!!) Midway through them though I was getting visions of my grandfather holding me as a child....(That's where Alexander gets the middle name of Regis) and that refocused my breathing...
Anyway, they gave me one dose of pain meds that lasted about an hour...just enough to take an edge off and let me rest between contractions.... once it wore off we finally reached 10 cm at 8:24....and the pushing began...Alexander was here 10 minutes later!!!!!!!! My husband still swears the Holy Spirit entered me at that time because he says (not being rude at all) that he has never ever known me to have that much strength and ability to be able to push the way I did...and he should know, he has seen me do this twice before!!!
So Alexander is here....and I actually do not regret the pain meds....I really think I was right that I needed that brief respite to get me through the rest.
I found out later that there were some worries near the end...there was a dip in the heartrate right near the end...but it came right back...also the midwife was briefly worried that I may have been hemoraging but apparently all of the bloody show, etc. came out at once and it was an amount she had never seen before...so she had the docs there as back up just in case....but no intervention was needed...also the cord was close to being around his neck...but was actually more around the collar bone.... and it was the first time she had seen a placenta in that shape before....the name escapes me now as I type this but it was spread down the middle and double wide...almost like you would do a fillet....not that common but intack and not a cause for alarm....
Anyway, that's the story.....can't believe Alexander slept this whole time for me to finally get it out. Breastfeeding hasn't been easy....at least not on the right side...can't figure this out..never had problems before...but at least I'm getting more sleep than I did the 48hours prior to BIRTH!!!!
