In gdb, you can interrupt(pause) the program by C-c and resume.
Can you do this in pdb?
Based on this bug report it might be fixed in Python 3.
In 2.x Ctrl-C will throw a KeyboardInterrupt, which is typically unhandled by the program, and will put the debugger into 'post-mortem' mode. You cannot continue where you left off.
I don't know if there's some other way to do what you are describing.