After about thirty minutes of these stronger contractions, I told my husband to call the midwife. It was about eight in the morning. Once the midwife and her on-call nurse arrived, they checked my progress. I was still only about three centimeters dilated but my cervix was now anterior so there was progress albeit still slow progress in the last eight hours of labor. Soon after the midwife and nurse arrive my contractions continued to get stronger and more painful. The contractions seemed to be right on top of each other. With every contractions I reached for my husband for support. I labored in any position that seemed more comfortable at the moment. Some of the positions I chose actually made the contractions worse but in the midst of a hard contraction moving is not really a good option either. I found myself preferring to hang/hug/squeeze/cling to my husbands neck,shoulders, and waist. I also liked leaning over an exercise ball on my knees while grasping my husband hands during contractions. At one point I felt the need to lay down and I had several contractions while laying on the floor on my side. Breathing through contractions was really important and helped me get through each one. My stuffy nose kind of came in handy because it forced my to focus my breathing through my mouth which also helped me focus my breathing with the rise and fall of each contraction. I also found myself needing to vocalize low tones with my breathing as a sort of focusing mechanism. At one point during active labor, I asked to get into the birth pool. The warm water was such an enormous relief and I felt my body truly relaxing in between the contractions. Even though the contractions still hurt, the water gave me a buoyancy that helped me cope with them as they became even more intense. After about three hours of active, hard, very painful (natural pain is so much easier to cope with) contractions, the midwife checked my progress and I was about eight centimeters dilated. She asked me if I wanted her to break my water, and I asked her if it would make things go quicker, and she said yes so I said: “lets do it!”
(To be continued …)