How does it feel?

[meryb100]

So my last one was a c-section dew to several reasons, and now i want a natural birth.
i don't know how contractions feels like.. i know everyone say "when its the real thing you know it", but how? sometimes i know they start off slow and weak..
how did you know?

Well I didnt. Even with second child. Thought it was wind for hours. After a lot of wind you do get a suspicion ;)

Same with pushing, both times I had a panicked oh no I need a poo moment. How will I manage this. I need gas and air. Not sure I can sit on the loo etc. First time I had to be told that sensation was the baby coming out. Secind time I did figure it out myself eventually

Bump

Mine started out with period pain type twinges. Then I twigged that they were coming at regular intervals. At which point I thought "oh shit..."

Actuallg I wasnt convinced I was having contractions till I dreamed I was having contractions. Then one woke me ip

I started with full on pain from nothing so knew it was the real thing. Towards the end, think of when you've really really really needed a poo and times that pressure by about 1000!

I had a baby 6 months ago via emergency c section so can't tell u about the actual 'eye watering' bit. Contractions and labour are an odd sensation. Contractions feel like a tight, painful band across your tummy. They are really uncomfortable and painful but come and go so u have a break in between them. You also know why it's happening so can deal with it (at first) but as it progresses it gets more painful but u know its nearly at an end. You'll be fine. It must be ok because I'm contemplating a second one

The thing about labour is that it is different for everyone, so you could collect a thousand descriptions of what contractions/crowning etc are like but it would not be useful information for you, because how it is for you may be totally different.

For me, contractions were like waves of strong period pain. The bit where the baby comes out was like the peristalsis feeling you get when being sick - involuntary and a bit odd, but not painful. The whole thing for me was very manageable, I had about an hour of gas and air towards the end of dilation and the pushing part was hard work and an effort, but not agony or anything close to it.

For me the contractions were my first proper pain, I'd had a few braxton hicks but they felt more like a tightening.

The first contraction woke me at 5am and felt like a period pain, I idly wondered if it was the start of it and Dd would be here in a few days and fell back to sleep then was woken half hour later with another.
The thought that there may be a pattern to them made me stay awake and sure enough it went off and I had another.

I'd say that it was the fact they came and went made me realise they were contractions other than the intensity of the pain. They didn't become unbearably painful for about 8 hours.

I didn't know it. I was 40+10 and I had been having every ache and pain and cramp and twinge under the sun in the last 6 weeks.

On the afternoon of D-day I got my usual crampy aches and I thought bloody hell stop it, that's every half an hour I am getting those twinges, I am so sick of all these twinges, god I hate being pregnant (etc. etc. ad infinitum).

My first baby was induced at 40+0, so like you I hadn't experienced a natural start, and I still didn't twig that these twinges might actually be IT happening and that I might be about to have a baby; this is despite my being 40+10 and having a large boy inside me to remind me. They were 6 mins apart by 6pm and I still thought it was probably a "false start". What a dunce. It was only when DH got home at 7pm and found me crawling around the room with cx every 4 mins that someone with an iota of sense he took over and whisked me off to hospital.

I honestly think I must have gone a bit mad with the general tiredness and grimness of being very overdue. I just had given up thinking it would ever happen in reality.

Good luck love!