Is this the start of labour?

[Chocolatecakefan]

I'm currently 39 + 4

Yesterday, I woke up feeling li,e my body was absolutely shattered - took all my energy to simply get out of bed! From about 2pm onwards I've had massive backache and when I laid down it felt like period pains.

At 1am this morning I had a contraction, followed by another one 15 mins later, then 20 mins later, then 8 mins later. I also felt really sick and nauseous. I didn't have anything else and fell back asleep.

This morning, I've still got the backache and about an hour ago, I had two more contractions about 8 mins apart (lasting approx 20s). Since then, nothing else other than painful heartburn.

Is this the start of labour? I wasn't expecting the contractions to be so stop-start. I'm not mistaking them for BH am I?

It's not officially labour until the contractions are regular.

That's not true. By the point I gave birth my contractions had never been regular and I know this to be the case for many women. I got to 5cm dilated and they were anywhere from 3mins to 14 mins apart. I was then put on a syntocin drip, and despite being given the highest dose, they never regulated. This is what bothers me about the 'don't call hospital until they're 3 minutes apart' thing.

Sounds to me like it's definitely the start of things! Re backache - is the baby back to back do you know?

Good luck!

I think she is, yeah

Sounds like the start of things!! X

How's it going?!

Not great. Still got insane back ache/period pain type feelings and I
Ve been feeling 1-2 contractions every 4hrs or so, so it's not getting any more regular. When I stood up out of bed this morning I had a blinding pain across my lower bump and it was so hard to stand upright but that seems to have gone now.

I can only assume that it's my body preparing itself rather than actual labour. Either way, it frickin sucks!

You sound like you're very uncomfortable you poor thing. Can you get checked to see if you're dialated at all?

I've got a midwife appt booked for Thursday pm (due date) so I'll speak to her then, although hopefully things will have progressed by then

best of luck. I hope things will progress for you too.