Thank You, Sheila Kitzinger

Ha-HA! My crisis of discontent with my previous birth experience is over, thanks to the genius writings of one Sheila Kitzinger, British childbirth expert, whose book I picked up at the library today. Remember how I said I didn't actually want to push with Adelay, and then there was the whole floating feeling and the pulling down of the baby with the horrid vacuum suctioner thing?
Well, Sheila was talking in her book about how often, when a woman reaches full dilation, there is a period of twenty minutes or so when her contractions lessen a little, or even stop, and she may feel no desire at all to push yet, but simply want to rest for a while and gather strength. She said often this may be because, while the cervix has dilated fully, the baby's head is not yet against the perineum, and so the instinct to push is not there yet. She urges women not to be ordered into pushing just because everyone is telling them that "they're ready" if they don't actually feel like pushing yet, or it may reuslt in the doctor's having to remove the baby with suction, and the mother may feel like she didn't actually do the job herself as she wanted.
Yay! I'm not crazy, and I didn't fail. I probably would have felt the urge to push in time if that time had just been given to me- if I had demanded it! But no, when told to push I pushed, even though I wasn't feeling it, and the result was a suction delivery and a lingering feeling of not having done well with this part of birth. When in fact, maybe the doctor was the one who didn't do so well. This time, I will know better, and I will push when I'm good and ready and not before!