Describe early labour

[photographerlady]

Hi ladies. Could anyone share their experience and what it felt like? How early contractions felt and did it suddenly just happen or started off as light cramps for a while?

Yes, for me it wAs like cramps, then suddenly I thought, oh maybe I should time them to see if they Re getting closer. Was round a friends house having a cup of coffee and had to drive home inthe end in the 4 minute gAp between. Just made it home before a massive contraction in the driveway of the house.

Early labour for me wasn't really there!

My waters broke at 2.30am. Sat around for an hour, ate and went back to bed. Contractions started about 6.30am. They were ok (maybe 20 minutes apart) for about 1.5 hours, then really ramped up. They went a bit crazy after that, with two coming in a row then a 4 minute break. I didn't have a consistant '3 minutes' between each one untill the baby was born at 4.03pm.

I woke up around 7am with really light period type cramps which got a bit more regular during the day, like waves of mild cramps. Wasn't very painful at all though, I cut the grass and my DH's hair that day! Really wasn't convinced it was labour even though I was 4 days overdue.

Decided it was proper labour around 8/9pm that night when the waves of pain got much more intense and was all in my back. Like really bad lower back ache. I wanted to hunch over every time it hit. My DH rubbing my back soothed it and going in the shower with the water pounding on my back was nice. We tried timing them but the contractions never settled into a regular pattern - varied between 3/5/11 minutes apart. Gradually got more and more painful until I went to hospital at 2am (DH rubbing my back helped a bit but didn't really touch the pain). At that point contractions were more regular and they felt like a bowling ball trying to push its way out of my back. My baby was head down but facing up (if I was lying on my back my baby was facing the ceiling) which is probably why I felt it all mainly in my back.

Only had time for gas and air which is a weird experience - I still felt EVERYTHING, but it was like my brain was floating outside my body and not able to process the pain. My waters didn't break til near delivery so was a bit spaced out by then - it sounded/felt like a distant pop somewhere inside me but don't remember it hurting.

(Cor I've written a lot, sorry!)

Forgot to mention the shaking which was a surprise to me as hadn't heard/read about it - when my contractions were getting more intense my body started shaking and I felt really cold. A hot water bottle helped a bit but I couldn't stop my teeth chattering!

Apparently it's normal and is your body's reaction to the shock.

Period pain

back period type pains every 15 minutes or so for me x

Different each time
dc1 - woke in early hours with quite strong contractions (as in not being able to get my breath type pain) --which then went on for about 20hours before the hospital were interested in me coming in).
dc2 - never really had any contractions (as I recognised from dc1). Was a day overdue and just thought - 'that's strange, the way this slightly uncomfortable feeling (indigestion I thought) is coming and going every 10 mins or so'
dc3 - woke and went to loo and decided that might be my waters breaking rather than a wee, so went in to hospital and she arrived 3 hours later.

For me it was a dull period type cramping every 3-4 minutes from the get go. It was similar to period pains but different at the same time, there was no doubt it was labour from the start though.

Period cramps for about 2 hours which increased in severity over the 2 hours - around 8-10 mins apart, then my waters broke and they were quite severe (needed to breathe through them) straight away and 4-5 mins apart. DS born less than 12 hours later (3 hour pushing stage prolonged the whole thing quite a lot!)

Wednesday evening, went for a curry, and was having the occasional twinge in my bump. With hindsight, that was things kicking off. Not exactly painful, but I didn't get any sleep that night as it settled down to every twenty minutes like clockwork. Thursday, aches in my lower back that came and went in waves. By midafternoon I'd decided this probably was actually the real thing (had been thinking "maybe it's just Braxton Hicks?" every five minutes for several hours at this point). By 7pm the gap between contractions was less than five minutes, so no longer classed as early labour.

I had mild period-style pains for a few days and then a noticeable contraction on the Sunday night about 10pm. The early contractions lasted 20-30 seconds and were uncomfortable more than painful. I contracted irregularly anywhere from 10 minutes to a few hours apart until I had a sweep on the Wednesday morning which ramped things up a gear and then I contracted painfully anywhere from 7 minutes to 20 minutes apart after that. By Thursday night I had contractions every 5 minutes so I went to the Birthing Centre who found I was still only 2-3cm and advised me to go home until contractions were regularly 3 minutes apart. By Friday morning I was a shaking crying wreck who hadn't slept at all since Tuesday night. I ended up going to the MAU who noticed a problem with my trace and sent me to be induced by breaking my waters otherwise I think I would still be in latent labour now! It was never ending but my beautiful daughter was worth it

Thanks everyone for sharing