Immediately after my water broke the contractions and pain really intensified. We headed to our room and I got settled into bed so they could place an IV and get me hooked up to the monitors. Oh, but first I had to go to the bathroom - and I will note here that throughout my labor, going to the bathroom was absolute and pure hell. But I knew in the back of my mind that having a full bladder would interfere with my progress and the baby moving down so I tried to go often. And it sucked SO much. First of all, every time I moved at all it seemed like that would initiate a contraction. Then once I got to the toilet, I had so much pressure down there all the time I really felt like I had to brace myself on the edge of the tub and the support bar, especially during contractions. And as we all know, tensing up like that does not help matters. In hindsight it amazes me all these women you see on tv who find it easier to labor on the toilet or on a birthing stool. Me not so much. So anyway, that first time when I pulled the towel away I noticed it had a couple of green spots on it and my heart sank - meconium. Dangit. It was something I was kind of prepared for since I was so overdue, but it was still a disappointment because I knew it meant that he was in some kind of distress, even if just a little. Anyway, then I got to the bed and hooked up to the monitors. With those first few contractions, Whoosh, fluid would just GUSH out. I remember wondering in amazement how much water could possibly be in there. It wasn't long before the doctor on call came in, Dr. Z, to introduce himself. We discussed our plan to try to get through this without any pain medications and to be honest I got the distinct impression he thought that was pretty stupid. But as we sat there and I had contraction after contraction he and the nurse both said I was doing great and made it look easy. Just before he left he asked me if I was feeling them a lot in my back and I said yes. He looked at the nurse and said "you know what you have to do." And she nodded. My heart sank a little more - I was pretty sure I knew what he was getting at, but he went ahead and explained. The back pain as well as my contraction pattern - 2 really close together and then a little longer break, then another 2, etc - indicated the baby was probably posterior. Which means his back was up against my spine and his face was facing towards my front. This is not the best way for babies to come out because a) labor is usually longer, b) labor is usually more painful and c) they just don't fit that way through the pelvis as well. So we needed to try some different positions to get him to flip around, such as laying on my side, sitting forward on the ball, hands and knees, etc. Unfortunately by that time about the only position I found the least bit comfortable was sitting on my bottom with my back as straight as it could be. 
But again, in all my research, I knew that changing positions often during labor would not only help it progress faster, but it would help turn the baby, which would also make it progress faster and also hopefully less painful. So I moved down onto the ball and tried to manage. I could sort of lean forward in between the contractions, but during them I had to sit straight up again, there was just no getting around it.
Originally I had not wanted to be monitored continuously but it proved to be really helpful because Eric would watch the monitor and tell me when each contraction had peaked. As soon as he said those words I would start to feel a little better. After each one was over he would tell me what a great job I was doing, and rub my back, and remind me to just take one contraction at a time. I was surprised to find that when things really got going I didn't want to be touched during the contractions for the most part, it was too distracting. Like I said though, in between them I was still in a lot of pain and oh wait did I mention I was in significant pain pretty much the whole time?On the plus side, my room had a great view! ;) Not that I noticed.
Holy cow, this is a novel. I haven't even gotten to my IV yet! But I gotta go get some sleep now.
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