When preparing for labour, I was under the impression that you had a contraction, and then it stopped, and no pain at all until the next contraction. OK, like interval training, I thought, and that was what I prepared for. We practiced counting down the contractions and things like that.
In the beginning hours of labour, that's what it was like, but after a certain point, I just had continuous pain, all the time. I think, for the last 10 hours or something like that, with no relief. There was certainly a crescendo of crushing pain during the contractions but there was also a continuous agony, like someone was trying to pull my hips apart like a wishbone. It was torture. Sometimes I didn't really know when I was having a contraction and when I wasn't, I was in so much pain.
Afterwards, when I was a gibbering, traumatised wreck, the midwives said my labour was 'textbook'. Does everyone have continuous pain like this? (And if so, I am now left wondering, why are we not told about this?)