Vaginal Exam confused, early/false labour

[dcourtney]

Hi everyone, (sorry in advance for long post)

So I'm 38+2 and have been having a slow build up of contractions for a week now. I had a vaginal exam on Thursday as I felt like I was in early labour and wasn't sure what was happening. A midwife came to my house to do it, and they found that I was 1-2cm dilated, cervix soft, in posterior position and -2 cm station relative ischial spines.

Then yesterday I had extremely strong contractions that continued in strength all day, increasing in frequency and intensity and lasting a minute each time. By 1am I was feeling like I needed to go to hospital so called and was told to come in.
BUT once I was examined there, the midwife found I was apparently less than 1cm dilated, cervix FIRM and long, and -3 station relative ischial spines. So not in labour according to her.

How does that work? I don't understand how I can go from a soft to firm cervix, and to be less dilated than before, and all the other changes. Who's right?

Fwiw I felt like the midwife in the hospital decided I wasn't in labour as soon as she walked in the door, as I have been very calm (I'm doing Hypnobirthing). She couldn't figure out the position of the baby (surprise, exactly where he's always been, head in pelvis bum and back on my left side) and apparently couldn't feel his head in my pelvis at all when she examined me. So I'm a bit about it all.

Someone, help me not feel so confused!

[Mummyme87]

Different midwives, different fingers. We all feel different things. The first midwife may have felt your external OS and not your internal. This is very common however