They were REAL contractions! WHY did they stop??

[Slabobbin]

I am so frustrated right now. I know that there are mamas who are at 42 weeks and still waiting to have their babies and my hat is off to you. I honestly do not see how you have done it without going completely out of your mind.

I have been having predromal labor for over a month now. I haven't been having regular contractions or even really the tightening kind but it has more been just a constant pain, a constant hurting that doesn't let up for a while. Then they would pass as quickly as they came. A lot of times I could relate it to not having enough water or overdoing things. Sometimes it just happened for no apparant reason.

I had an appointment with my midwife on Friday morning. I was having some very mild, but real contractions that morning. She was listening to the baby's heartrate when I had one and she thought that she detected a deceleration in the heartrate so she hooked me up to the "torture machine" for about thrity minutes to see what was going on. It turns out that the baby's heartrate was fine but it did show that I was having contractions about every five to seven minutes.

She checked me and said that I was a good 3 cm and that I was almost completely effaced and that the baby was low. She said that I was wide open and that my body was very ready to have this baby. I had a contraction while I was being checked and the midwife said that it felt like I had gone from a 3 to a 4 with just that contraction!

So we went to eat and the contractions got progressivly harder and more frequent. We went to Books-a-Million and Target and by the time we finished at Target I decided that it was time to go on over to the birthing center (affiliated with a hospital but a whole separate place). The contractions were about two minutes apart and they were definitely real. My legs would go kind of numb wobbly feeling and I could feel the contractions starting kind of behind my ears and they would generate into my uterus. It's hard to explain but they were the kind I had with my daughter when I was close to delivery (not transition but the ones I was having right before transition).

We got to the hospital/center and they put me in a triage room - which I hated. They left me there for a while...maybe to call my midwife? I'm not sure why. I kept having contractions as I was sitting in the chair waiting. They were about two minutes apart and I was having to stop, concentrate and breathe through them.

They finally came in and hooked me up to the monitors and checked my dilation (the nurse put me at about a 3). Then suddenly the contractions stopped. They just stopped. They went from me being at the point before transition (if I am going on how it was with my daughter) to nothing.

They left me hooked up for a little over an hour and then sent me home. So now it has been all day Saturday and now all day today and NOTHING.

What on Earth happened?!!?

I feel like our lives are in such a limbo. My DH was off Friday, Saturday and Sunday and now he has to go back to work tomorrow and still...no baby. I have been reminding myself all day of why I am against an induction...but I am so tempted. Everyone is sooooo stressed out and miserable. This is no way to live. I am so angry and emotional inside and so is the rest of the family. It's a living hell...and I know it shouldn't be this way.

Maybe if I hadn't of been in LABOR and there ready to deliver and then everything just STOP it would be different. I think that is what is frustrating us all so much....well that and not knowing how much longer this is going to go on. I know that it could go this way for two more weeks (I am "officially" "overdue" tomorrow) and I just honestly don't think that I could mentally handle that.

[Hallielynn01]

you should post this in the birth pros section, I bet they will have a lot of insight for you! It seems like a LOT of my second time moms, both clients and friends, with their second babies, have had more issues with "false labor" or labors that are strong enough to go the hospital or BC, then stop. But really, post in the birth and beyond, birth pros section!!

They will also have suggestions for getting it started, how to handle an induction if needed etc.

[Slabobbin]

This is actually my third but my first was an early induction and was a nightmare so I can't really use it as a comparasion for anything normal or natural! Thanks for the suggestion on posting in the other forum.

[~Megan~]

Probably because you went in to the hospital. Being away from home creates tension and your body needs to be very relaxed to give birth.

I was having contractions all night and when my kids woke up they stopped. Same thing happened in my last labor, things picked up again when dd went to bed. I think I need peace and to feel like everyone is safe and where they need to be for me to give birth.

Try staying at home longer next time.

[Slabobbin]

Yes, I hate the hospital. I am completly behind a home birth but unfortunately my midwife (whom I love, love, love) does not yet do them (she is considering it). I am on state aid and do not have the money to pay a midwife out of pocket (even if there were one that I liked as well as this one). So this "birthing center" (hospital) is my compromise...it is the closest I am going to be able to get.

But yes, they pissed me off. Their questions, their rules, etc.

I did realize how much I have changed just since Natalie's birth and how I hate the monitors, I hate that damn triage room and I do not want a hospital birth. I told Shawn that they were going to mess around and piss me off and sure enough they did. I didn't take it out on them because they were really nice and sweet and sounded like they were going to try to be pretty accommodating when I told them that I just wanted a Hep Loc and that I wanted the cord to stop pulsing before being clamped, etc.

But the questions they ask...oh my gosh. How in the HELL is it any of their business if you are having financial or legal problems? How does that relate to my baby's birth?! And she asked if I wanted information about early release (part of the form questions) and I perked up and said that I did. Then *she* got kind of shitty and said that I could go home if I wanted but that the baby HAD to stay 24 hours. Hell to the no! They don't TELL me when I can take my baby home. That just really rubbed me very wrong. And here is the kicker - when I told them the meds I am on they said that because of the Metformin (sugar medicine for insulin resistance due to PCOS) that they will have to watch the baby's sugar closely and that she may need observation. I spoke right up and said that they could observe her all they wanted in my room but that they were not taking my baby. She insisted that they would if they needed to. I do NOT consent and as far as I know, this is all I legally have to say. I'm not sure how far they would push it but I am willing to fight. I don't want to be there anyway so I'll be damned if I let them push me around.

Oh and get this, they took the tub out and turned the room into a waiting room!! Most people come right in and get epidurals and no one ever wanted to get in the tub. That just blows my damn mind. Why go to a birthing center if you are going to have a hospital birth? But evidently this IS a hospital with a nice name of birthing center. I promise that I am not trying to be difficult, I really am not. I just hate the medical model. If it made sense it would be one thing but it doesn't. It goes against anything natural and normal and turns it into something that it doesn't have to be. So anyway, I don't know if I just got so upset that my contractions stopped or what.

As we were driving home and hit our road I was looking around at how beautiful and green an peaceful everything was and thinking of how it was such a stark contrast to the traffic and noise and filth of Chattanooga. I told Shawn that I would be happy to go squat under one of the trees and have her. I pointed to the cows and said "See, they don't hook them up to monitors. You just drive by one morning and they have a new baby standing there beside them".

[Slabobbin]

All that said, I had my daughter at the same place 3 1/2 years ago and with the same midwife and it was what I have always condisdered a wonderful birth (especially in comparasion to my 3 day failed induction, 4th degree episotomy, born dead and then resusitated son's birth that I had with an OB). Her birth was very, very healing and peaceful. So I'm not sure what my deal is with this one.

But what am I going to do? I mean she HAS to come out, relaxed or not, right?

[NewTennMom]

I really know your frustrations, Slabobbin. I've been having contractions since Monday. They won't let me deliver here in town until Tuesday (if I do before then, I have to drive over an hour away to a hospital I have never even been inside of, and I do NOT want to), so I am really trying my best to hold off. They have me on some medication to stop the contractions (being I am 34-35 weeks, they want to slow things up as much as possible). I really don't want to go back to L&D because I am sick of them pumping me with so many meds.

Today I broke down and cried a whole lot, because I am so frustrated with dealing with contractions constantly, and so so so against delivering far away from home. I've only got one more day to hold out, so I am hoping I make it. But I have all my bags packed and ready, just in case.

This is my first, so its pretty confusing and scary since I have NO idea what to expect, or what is 'normal'.

[Sioko]

slabobbin I know what you are going through. Both my previous births were as you described, slow constant for weeks contractions that effaced me almost completely but dilation was slow and inconsistant so they would keep sending me home. My last birth I got all the way to 5cm dilated, then the contractions just STOPPED and they wanted to send me home again but I refused. I live 45min away from my chosen hospital and with it being my second birth I was terrified I wouldn't make it back in time starting from 5cm if they started up again. I walked for 4 DAYS STRAIGHT, nipple stimulation, you name it and labor just wouldn't come again on it's own. I begged for pitocen to just get it going again and end it and they said I could stay the night and rest and if it didn't start again and I still wanted it, they'd give me the pitocen. And that's what happened.

I wish I knew what it was to suddenly go into labor one day and have it go for a few hours or even a day or two and end with a baby, but my body doesn't seem to work that way. I know how you feel with being aggravated and just tired of it all. I read the birth stories here and they all END. They start and they go until there's a baby. My birth stories go on like bad novels you're sick of reading but you keep reading it just to end it and suddenly there's this completely stupid unneeded twist that promises another 100 pages of the same damn thing. That;s when you throw the book away and make up your own ending. Pitocen. I love that stuff.