Kathryn's Story
It was Tuesday night of my thirty-fifth week. I lost my mucous plug, and overnight the backaches started. I was in some pain, but when it got hard to manage, my husband Josh just gave me backrubs. All day Wednesday the contractions came and went, but my back never stopped hurting. I loaded up on carbohydrates and took lots of nice, hot showers.
Wednesday around 8 p.m., my water broke. As we headed to the hospital, the contractions were two minutes apart, lasting a minute each.
Once there, I convinced the nurse that I shouldn't lie in bed (pain!) or be hooked up to the monitor at all times. We walked around as often as I could stand, and I got in the shower on all fours whenever they would let me take the monitoring belts off. When it was time for monitoring, I sat in a rocker. This was a massive lifesaver, as every time I touched that bed I just writhed in pain.
Around 4 a.m. on Thursday, I began throwing up. I was so depressed and exhausted. The nurse had said that she would give me a sleeping pill if I wanted a break, but I did not want the drugs and did not want to interrupt labor. Honestly, the most comforting thing right then was brushing my teeth.
By this point, contractions were coming every 90 seconds or less. I couldn't really describe how I was feeling to the nurse, but was I ever focused! I just sat in that rocker and thought all my happy thoughts and focused on popping my cervix open. Apparently the focusing was working, as I realized that I was actually sleeping in those 30-second breaks between contractions!
