Mother Nature can get her twisted jollies elsewhere.....

[Lizzie9984]

I've been in this prodromal/early labor for a WEEK now. A friggin' WEEK :
The contractions aren't exactly mild anymore, they stop me in my tracks for a few seconds before I can continue hobbling on around the house....Ice packs and the heating pad do nothing, tylenol no longer takes any edge off whatsoever, the mental relaxation techniques and all those varied relief/labor positions do nada, my back and stomach muscles are actually putting off natural heat to the touch (which just makes me feel like a human oven) I can't seem to sleep for longer than an hour before contractions jolt me awake, and to top it all off, it feels like someone's taking a baseball bat to my pubic bone every time I move. What a wonderful thundering, throbbing feeling of pain & pressure :

The only positive thing I can come up with this morning is hey, at least I'm losing large amounts of plug....Helluva lot better than going through all this and having nothing to show for it, right?

I feel like I'm right at the cusp of the next stage, and have felt that way for days, and I'm starting to get really pissy and snippy. I'm not sick of being pregnant, but more accurately, I've had ENOUGH of laboring like this for so long, it's totally drained me, I feel like the crappy car battery in need of a jump to get going every day.....


If anyone's gone through obscenely long labors like this, feel free to chime in...I'm actually curious as to how the rest of it progressed as a whole once you got past the prodromal/early stage.

[Lizzie9984]

Oh yeah, and the contraction that woke me up earlier this morning, not only did I wake up practically trying to rip the finneal (sp?) off the headboard, I ground my teeth so hard in my sleep that I chipped off a nice chunk off the side of one of my molars : I was in enough pain from that contraction that I forgot about that til I brushed my teeth and noticed the missing bit.

[wwisdomskr]

Not much time to type right now. But, I don't want to leave you hanging out there in the wind, Mama.

I had weeks of preterm labor...then weeks of prodromal labor and "false starts." I don't think that my experience was nearly as difficult and consistent as yours though.

I'm sorry you're having such a hard time, Hun. Who's going to help love you through this? Can you get a massage...acupuncture...chiropractic care?

Two things:

Once I finally did get over that precipice, I had an absolutely beautiful 2 hour birth!

My so-called "post-dates" baby was only 7 lbs, 15 oz, covered in a thick layer of vernix and has nearly as much lanugo as my 32 week premature dd1!

So...I personally believe that there is a greater wisdom to Mother Nature and the timing of our births, etc. Course, I probably would have bit your nose off if you'd told me this LAST week.

Try to hang in there...but please do seek some outside support/TLC. I don't think I would have made it through the final weeks of my pregnancy without my Tribe...

[Undercover Hippie]

How are you doing now Lizzie? Been thinking about you all day. I'm sorry this labor is taking such a long, hard path!

[monocyte]

I had many starts and stops also, and I know it not a fun place to be!!

But soon...I feel it - you can't be pg forever, right? Soon you will look back (like me) and wonder when you can do it again!

[veganjoy]

hugs, mama. My labor was really similar: weeks of contractions and crampiness followed by 3 days of prodromal labor, then another day of "real" labor. Here's a thread on it:

http://www.mothering.com/discussions...d.php?t=796351

I wish I could say that labor went fast for me once things got regular, but I still had 16 more hours of hard labor. This kind of labor will mess with your thinking before it exhausts your body, so decide on what you want to do, and stay with it. Trust your instincts. If you sense the birth should be handled a particular way, do it. I felt intensely that I should not transfer from home to hospital, and that I should not birth in water. I was right: she had shoulder dystocia, which is better handled by midwives, and birthing on land made that (and a retained placenta) easier to manage.

Oh--and by the end, I found relaxation techniques completely useless. During contractions, I just began shouting at the top of my lungs: "My body is perfect!" "I love you, baby, come out!" "Thank you God! I am alive, alive, alive!" At that point, I wasn't going through labor, I was attacking it.

You can do this.

[GinaRae]

I'm worried about the pelvic pain thing -- I think that was causined (in me) by misalignment (and I still need to visit the chiro as I cannot open my legs wide when I walk or step up into the van, etc).

I think this caused me some problems during labor and delivery. Maybe spend some time on hands and knees to help???

[Grace24]

mama... I can't even imagine. Just feeling for you. How are you doing now?

[chrysalis]

YOU are sooooo strong mama. you are doing this-in no time you will be holding your baby...

how are you doing now? do u have a MW or OB?