I'd had pre-labour for about 4 days, and by day 5 I was pretty tired and over it all. Everything was ramping up on that 5th day, and looking back it was getting pretty intense, but at the time I just kept thinking it had to get so much worse. For my whole pregnancy everyone told me horror stories, how much pain I'd be in, just to go the drugs etc etc So as I worked with my contractions which were 10 minutes apart all day, never getting closer to the magical '3 minutes apart and go to the hospital', I started to think I'd never get through it when it finally became the real deal.
I went to my Ob appt at 6pm that afternoon for a check up as I was 8 days past EDD, and was praying I was even just starting to dilate as I'd had enough, to lay back on his table and find out I was 8cm dilated! I was sent packing to the hospital, getting there at 7pm, in the bath at 9pm, and birthed my baby girl at 10.36pm. Water was my drug, and yep it hurt, but my body gave me fantastic chances to rest and recuperate (my ctx were pretty much 10 mins apart my whole labour) and once I actually believed I was doing it it became a truly amazing experience.
I kept moving pretty much the whole time, vocalised from deep within, and just visualised my cervix opening and bub moving down. To this day I still go wow, did that really happen. The prelabour was exhausting, but I truly believe it helped my body prepare so well for the actual birth, I just wish I'd embraced it more, rather than being frightened of it. I completely understand how women can need other options during labour, I came close to asking a few times, but I'd really fallen in to the trap of believing it was going to be horrific from all the negatives I had heard, so it became this huge thing in my head. So much so I was pretty much in denial it was happening, looking back now I realise just how hard I'd been labouring that day at home.