One of my toughest moments in labor was during transition with my daughter. I literally felt like I was going to split in half. There was some panic involved there, but there where two things that helped me. One was my husband, whom I wouldn’t let leave my side. It wasn’t that he could take away the pain, but he helped to provide some stability for me. The other was the thought of each contraction moving my baby down.
I think the real issue that Pam England is getting at in her book (see previous post), is that while the stages of labor are defined as cm dilated by medical professional, to the laboring mom the stages of laboring are defined by emotions that we must work our way through. With my experience I was having to over come both pain and fear. I was in the pain/panic stage:) Which usually coincides to transition. When we look at how to best prepare for childbirth, we should be looking at what emotional states we go through to get that baby here just as much as dilation. In my opinion, those stages are the ones that matter the most to the moms emotional well being during the time of labor, and those are the ones she has to deal with personally.
So, what do you view as the stages of labor? What emotions do we all have to go through or resolve to have a peaceful and meaningful birth? And how do we help ourselves and others work through those stages?