Thank you all so much for your kind words of encouragement!
Thursday was a rough day, and that's putting it mildly. Amelie, thank you for sharing your SIL's story. I think the same thing is happening with me. I'm not worried about having a 10 lb baby, although I think I might laugh if I end up having a big baby with having such a small belly. My belly is so small with this one that there's barely enough room for both monitors on it when I get hooked up at the hospital.
I actually found information on it on spinningbabies.com that explained what I had to endure. I'm going to share the link to help anyone else in case it happens to you. It's really confusing and difficult when you're going through it. And for me, the doctors and nurses that I met were no help. I went home tired, confused, and frustrated. I actually figured out a lot of what was going on and how to handle it on instincts alone, but spinning babies confirmed a lot of what I thought and then I looked up ways to help her head engage. Basically, what I believe was happening (because the link on spinning babies explained basically exactly what I went through) was that the baby's head was not engaging in my pelvis like it needed to.
My labor started and was very hard and strong. My uterus was having to work overtime to get her head to engage properly. I was dilating at the bottom of my cervix but not at the top because the baby's head was not applying enough pressure to the top of my cervix for it to dilate like it needed to with each contraction. So, my contractions were as intense as they might be when you are dilating from a 7-8 in hard labor. If I had been able to get her head to come down like it needed to, I wouldn't have had to go through such a hard difficult labor. My labor may have stopped, but it would have started up again and I wouldn't have had to suffer through 13 hours of rough contractions. Or my labor would have progressed normally and I would have had my baby.
On instinct alone, I felt the need to rest. I felt that my body might need it to really labor. The article I read on it says that once the baby's head engages properly, the labor often stops. The body waits for the mother to get well-rested and fed and starts up again. Of course, I'll have to just wait and see what happens. But I spent yesterday taking it very easy and resting. I took a relaxing warm bath. I took 2 short naps. And I went to bed early and slept great last night. I'm hoping that her head is successfully engaged so that the next time my labor starts up, things will progress. And the good news is that if her head is engaged, my "real labor" contractions will be less intense and painful because my uterus won't be working double time. If I notice my body going through really hard contractions like that again, I will do some of the positions on spinning babies to try to help her head descend down further.
https://spinningbabies.com/start/in-pregnancy/38-weeks-is-baby-engaged-yet/
Beanonorder- I know you'll be able to successfully breastfeed even giving your son some formula. I had to do the same when my son had jaundice. I had to give him formula half of the time because I wasn't pumping out enough milk and they wouldn't let me take him out from under the lights to nurse. And we needed to push those fluids through. I'm glad to hear he is doing better!
Wanting- Congratulations on the birth of your baby girl!
Eidson- I'm sorry to hear about your wife. I hope things progress for her so that she doesn't have to worry about dealing with her supervisor being so close to her due date. I'm over the military doctors right now. Completely over them. But that's probably because the last 2 I just saw in triage seemed like complete idiots to me.
Dini- Happy 38 weeks!
Perplexed- I can relate to being moody over being hot! I have felt the same way for a few weeks now. I just can't handle the heat sometimes.
I'm rested today and ready for my labor to pick back up whenever it is (provided her head is properly engaged..I'm having a hard time determining if it is)! I woke up crampy again like I did on Thursday when my labor started the last time.