Hi all,
Congratulations to bananastew and welcome Oliver! My uncle's name was Oliver and I was quite tempted by that, but DP isn't keen so it's not on the list, but I like it it. We always used to call my uncle Noll so we would have abbreviated it if it had been used.
Whammie, my "period" pains up till now were really much more on the niggling end of things than anything more - nothing as intense as you say. But read on!
I've now been in latent labour since last night - went to bed with definite pains about 10 mins apart at 11:30 pm (after hilarious hi-jinks - not - trying to get the heating to work because I was feeling cold). Got up again at about 1:30 or 2 am with pains closer together and more intense; timed them and stuck it out for another hour or so before calling the doula at 3:40 or so (pre-warned the night before) who came round by just gone 4. A cold and foggy night for her to be travelling! I'd had a bright red show by then too.
At 7:30 am or so with pains more like every 3-4 mins apart, I rang the community midwife number; the shift change was at 8 so I was told that if not too urgent it would be easiest for the new MW to ring back, which she did just a bit after 8 am. We agreed she go to the hospital first and then come round to our place with all the gear, so she arrived about 9 am in the end. After a cuppa and a look through my notes she did all the usual BP and palpating checks, and reassured me that all was well with the baby him/herself too. We agreed to have an internal exam so I'd have an idea of where I'd got to so far; although only 1 + cm dilated I'd done well in getting to a good point of being effaced, so all good progress.
We agreed that Penny (MW) would go on off to other calls but leaving all the right gear behind; she called back as pre-arranged at about 1 so it's been me, DP, and our doula Eleanor waiting it out. I was starting to feel the pains a bit too much (so far I've only had a bit of paracetamol, some of which I threw up again when I didn't feel well shortly after) so I had a bath which was really very nice and which did calm things down as well as helping me to cope with the individual contractions. Since then there's been snoozes, a few nibbles to eat, cups of tea and water, and plenty of pains, some of which are more intense than others. The idea is that things are likely to heat up again in the evening / night, so maybe I will indeed have a Sept baby after all - by the skin of my teeth! But if s/he comes before midnight I shan't complain either.
Sorry for the longish post - as it's a fairly quiet moment still and I'm sat up in bed after a snooze, I thought I'd write down where we'd got to so far, for my future ref.