Lucky women begin latent labor late in the day. I don’t remember when or where I read it, but I hoped to be one of those lucky women who could sleep between contractions as the time between contractions decreased from 30 minutes at the onset of latent labor to 5-6 minutes apart at the beginning of active labor.<\/p>\n
I imagined myself trying to conserve strength if labor started during the day – and almost always imagined myself failing. I’m not good at doing nothing, especially if I know I’ve got a baby coming imminently.<\/p>\n
So every night for the previous 3 or 4 weeks I’d been tucking myself into bed, praying that tonight would be the night – and that I’d sleep right through most of it.<\/p>\n
By this time, though, my hope was wearing thin. This baby was showing no signs of budging. My cervix was firm and closed, as closed as it’d been at 37 weeks – 4.5 weeks ago, when we’d declared this baby free to come. In my most discouraged moments (and even in some of the less morose ones), I was sure we’d get to 43 weeks, still closed and I’d be cut open again, effectively barring me from any hope of a normal delivery ever.<\/p>\n
So I wasn’t hopeful the evening of December 22 as I fell into bed exhausted at nine or ten.<\/p>\n
No matter. Babies do not seem to pay much attention to their mother’s hopes – or if they do, they do so only to tease. <\/p>\n
I awoke to strong contractions at eleven. These were clearly different than the Braxton Hicks I’d had on and off for the past many months. I could not ignore these. Nor could I rest between them. The contractions ebbed and flowed, but the incredible pressure between my sitz bones did not.<\/p>\n
I moved to the couch lest I wake Daniel. Even if I could not conserve my strength, I’d try to conserve his. I writhed, I breathed, I tried all the distraction measures I’d been practicing to try to take my mind off the pain, the pressure. After an hour, I decided to go ahead and focus on the contractions enough to time them.<\/p>\n
A minute long. Six minutes apart. This was not what I’d read to expect. These were supposed to be shorter, further apart. I was supposed to be able to sleep between them.<\/p>\n
I went to the bathroom around one, now on December 23rd. The bloody mucous plug told me that something really was happening.<\/p>\n
But I wasn’t managing this early part well. It started so much more intensely than I’d expected. And I knew from a quick check in the bathroom that it wasn’t because my cervix was opening rapidly. <\/p>\n
I debated a bath. I needed relief from the never-ending pressure, but I didn’t want to slow down this labor that had taken so long to start in the first place. If I’d read it once, I’d read it a half dozen times. A soak in early labor will slow things down. Wait until you’re in active labor to get in a birthing pool.<\/p>\n
The need for relief (and the desire to maintain Daniel’s strength for the active part when I was sure I’d need him) won out. I took the bath, experienced sweet relief from that awful pressure. As promised, the contractions decreased – somewhat. They were now only 15-45 seconds long, but still coming every four minutes.<\/p>\n
I felt relaxed enough when my bath was done to get into bed and try to sleep. I texted Daniel that labor had started and that I was going to try to sleep (still trying to conserve his strength – especially because he has a hard time napping during the day). <\/p>\n
The pressure returned. I could keep myself in a left-lying Sims’ position only by mentally singing through my trouble hymns.<\/p>\n
I breathed my way through “Great is Thy Faithfulness”, through “How Firm a Foundation”, through “It is Well with My Soul”. I started over, the songs the only thing between me and tears. It was so intense, so early. How would I manage active labor if I was having so much trouble with the latent stuff? <\/p>\n
I couldn’t think about that, had to stay in the moment. I sang through my trouble songs again, reminding myself of the strength outside myself, by whose strength I could endure whatever might come. <\/p>\n
Finally, it was 4 AM, five hours in. Daniel woke up. <\/p>\n
Read the rest of the story: part 2<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lucky women begin latent labor late in the day. I don’t remember when or where I read it, but I hoped to be one of those lucky women who could sleep between contractions as the time between contractions decreased from 30 minutes at the onset of latent labor to 5-6 minutes apart at the beginning … Read more Lucky women labor late (Beth-Ellen’s Birth Story, part 1)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1290],"tags":[1618,1619],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18345"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18345"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18375,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18345\/revisions\/18375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bekahcubed.menterz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}