Contractions on tap

The contractions really hurt now. I feel like I’m getting stabbed in the back – with a certain amount of twisting. One minute is a very long time.

They’ve been hurting for so long my endurance is shot. . . my sister’s pre-labour was fifteen hours. These have been gaspingly painful for almost two days. On the up side, they are now 6 minutes apart (or have been for the last hour, anyway – there’s a fair bit of variance). When they’re five minutes apart and last a minute each, I’ll be pretty darn confident that real labour has begun (it’s somewhat of a grey area). I’m using a contractions app on CJ’s iphone. It’s incredibly useful.

At present I’m sort of cheating, and sort of doing what I’m meant to. In order to speed up the rate of contractions, I stand up every few minutes. It brings on contractions almost every time. Midwifes do advise gentle activity (such as walking) during pre-labour, so I guess it’s legitimate. It’s not an easy thing to do – a little like cutting off one’s own arm in order to escape a trap. You know it’s necessary to end your ordeal, but it’s still extremely difficult to deliberately cause yourself pain.

Between contractions, I feel pretty darn good – normal, by pregnancy standards.

I’ve kept CJ up most of the night to massage my lower back as the contractions kick in. He fell asleep while I was in another room organising items for the labour bag (hairbrush and so on) – very very slowly. I’m letting him sleep for the moment, but it won’t be long. The thrill of staying up all night enduring pain alone wore off a while ago.

Recently finished watching the full Lord of the Rings trilogy (and “Stardust”, and reading “Sabriel” and “Lirael” by Garth Nix). My head is full of heroes, courage, and sacrifice for the greater good. I hope the heroic notions stay with me for a while at least, to help me through this.