Convoluted Emotional Implications, Part Two:

So, it's now 9:00. J is sleeping in the living room on the couch so his snoring (wait, what? J? snoring? did I just say that out loud??) won't keep me from being able to sleep. But then, lo and behold, the ctx start up again!

Let me pause for a minute and say positively that regardless of the fact that it wasn't until this point that I actually began to dilate consistently, these were absolutely the exact same ctx that I'd been having since early Friday morning. Same intensity, same length, same spacing. And up until I was pushing, they never got any closer than five minutes apart or longer than a minute. So, whatever you skeptics want to call "real labor", I say phooey. Labor started early Friday morning, regardless of when dilation kicked in.

So I lay in bed for a few hours, trying to sleep between ctx. I finally gave up and woke J at around 2:00am (I think). We talked and contracted and prayed and wondered when this would all just stop so we could get some rest, since we "obviously" weren't in "real" labor yet. We actually got to the point of talking about the possibility of going to the hospital, since at this point I hadn't slept in 48 hours and was beyond exhausted. I don't know exactly what we were thinking we'd DO at the hospital, but we felt like we'd reached the end of our ability to cope. I started crying again. This time just because I was tired and miserable.

At this low point, God brought to mind somethng from Judah's birth. Sometime during that day of labor, the midwife checked me and mentioned that my cervix was still "rigid." She took about six EPO capsules, popped them and applied the oil to my cervix. It softened up and began to dilate much more quickly-- I think I went from 4cm to 7cm in about an hour, and then from 7cm to pushing him out in another hour.

So that's what we did. By now, J thought I was about 5 cm, which would have been good news, but I refused to believe him. He was greatly encouraged and called the midwife. He asked her to come alone and only call her assistants when she felt birth was imminent. That was such a relief to me, not to have so many people crammed into the room-- especially people I didn't know.

When the midwife arrived, she checked me again (so much for me not wanting to have any cervical checks :P ) and now I was 7cm (gotta love that EPO-- keep it in mind, ladies). But I didn't believe her either! I had by this point completely convinced myself that I was NOT in labor.

And the next part of the story will explain the quote I posted at the beginning of this saga.