Yet another "is this it?" - slightly tmi

[PeahenTailFeathers]

I'm 38 + 5, first baby, with scan due date 11th May.
I haven't had a show yet, but I've been waking up intermittently since about half one this morning with tightening pains in my abdomen and severe nausea/throwing up (when I get the pains I get extremely hot and I think that's been making me so sick). I had a little diarrhoea around an hour ago as well. I have spoken to a midwife who didn't seem too concerned and said if I wasn't getting regular contractions every 4 minutes that lasted for at least 60 seconds, it wasn't worth going into hospital.
The abdominal pains seem to have subsided into mild backache and the baby is jiggling and squirming around as normal, although I'm still nauseous.
I'm lying down at the moment, sipping water and diaralyte and wiping my face with a lovely, cold, wet flannel, but obviously feel well enough to play on Mumsnet .
Could it be labour? I'll be so pleased, excited and shocked if it is!
Thanks for any advice .

It sounds like it could be the beginnings to me! If you feel you need to go to the hospital to get checked out, ring them and tell them, don't ask them as they might say your contractions are too far apart, but trust your instincts. My midwife said to "stay at home until you feel you need to be in hospital with support", which I think is good advice as every labour is different and the early signs don't come in any particular order either so it's very hard to predict.

I was having contractions for about three hours at home and felt I needed to push down so decided it was time to go to hospital, spoke to the midwife and she sounded doubtful as it was a short time and my contractions weren't lasting 60 seconds, but they were frequent every two minutes or so. She said to pop in and get checked out. Got there and was examined and I was 9cm dilated and had DS two hours later! Glad I didn't try and wait longer at home!

Good luck!

Thanks for your reply .
I haven't been in the mood to do anything except take naps and watch mindless, crap tv all day and the contractions haven't got as frequent as I hoped, although there are more of them and they are getting stronger. I've got my fingers crossed that she'll make her grand appearance soon.

Sounds like you are doing all the right things- chill out and keep resting.
The biggest thing I regretted with my first birth was not having had a good sleep the night before and first ones can take a REALLY long time sometimes. So easy to be eager for it to start but patience is a virtue as they say and you need to conserve energy as much as you can.
I also had a couple of false starts before it happened for real which i am told is quite common. Congrats on the pg and good luck with the birth, they are lovely the little bleeders!

How are you now? Hope your holding a little baby :) xx

I wish!
I'm getting very mild, almost painless, contractions every half an hour, which the baby hates.
I also have absolutely no appetite, so I'm making sure that when I done manage to force something down, it's energy giving chocolate .