What do contractions feel like?

[eiysmummyc]

I am curious to know what contractions feel like. 39+4 with 2nd baby but induced first time round and have no recollection of what contractions felt like before I was induced and experienced artificial labour pains!! All examples and experiences welcome!!

I think it varies.

With my first, it was a burning pain around where my cervix would be, which built up, then slowly dissipated towards my hip bones, like smoke rings . It got gradually more painful and harder to recover from. Towards the end of the 1st stage, it was like a kidney stone (ie being run through by a red-hot poker.

Second time, there was no pain, but there was a familiar sensation of pulling under the bump, which I recognised and felt there was absolutely no doubt I was in labour. If it had been the first time, I would probably have gone to sleep and had the baby in bed.

Hiya!
Went to 5 cm before I had an epidural.

Water broke first. Light spasms started in my back. Early labour was very bearable. Just lower back pain coming on and off.

When in active labour, clearly very different. Pain moved to the front and (obviously) intensified. What I felt was stretching, not contracting. I described it at the time as horrible. Then I had the epidural.

Had a 10.5 hour labour so pretty standard. The two things I hadn't expected: feeling a stretching instead of a contracting feeling and how suddenly things changed (active labour seemed to come on like a ton of bricks-one minute I was watching TV, the next I was vomiting and grunting with pain).

I think i maybe slept through early labour?! Woke at 2am with unmistakable, very strong period-like pains, that came and went in a very definite manner.

They were strong pains, but dull rather than sharp iyswim?

Interesting how different everyones experiences are! My contractions felt like my whole body was being crushed, and they were very painful staight away, no slow build up.

Intense period pains for me. And like the opposite of a vice pushing me apart.

I had period type pains which were uncomfortable and regular. My waters then started to go, and within the hour I had my first strong contraction which bought me to my knees, the pain was all over my bump and in my lower back and remained like that until my DD arrived five and a half hours later. Hard to describe the actual pain, like nothing I've ever experienced.

Do you have cramps when on a period? These are actually contractions to push out the menstrual blood so will feel like a gradually intensifying version of that. It can also be a tightening feeling of the tummy muscles like if you were trying to hold your tummy in. Don't forget that you can be getting Brixton hicks(practice ones). Good luck xx

Mine were nothing like period pains and nothing like the Braxton hicks - I had a lot of tightenings of the abdomen at the drop of a hat, especially the second time as it was twins, and actually went into labour after this had happened after going to the loo.

Mine was almost entirely in the cervix area and intense.

Nothing like period pain and nothing like Braxton Hicks either, for me.
DS was back to back and it felt like someone was trying to force their way through my lower spine with a huge blunt rock. Kind of like my backbone was being crushed from the inside out.
The word "agony" doesn't go anywhere near it. I was so beside myself with pain that I was delirious and would have gleefully shot myself in the head had I been given the chance.

I also found it to be very similar to the kind of tummy ache you get when you have the squitters

I think they're unique, I'd had braxton hicks and imagined them to feel the same but stronger however when I had a proper contraction there was no doubt.

When they're in full swing they're excruciating! Sounds silly now but pre babies I thought the painful bit in childbirth would be the actual birth or never crossed my mind that contractions would hurt, I thought it'd just be a squeezing feeling.

Nothing like period pains for me, bar the niggly "is this something " ones.

Like a Chinese burn tightening around my spine and then spreading across my whole mid section.

The back pain. Jeeesh. Even the one who wasn't back to back was back pain.

That said, 2/3 were straightforward and no pain relief beyond gas and air.

Like period pains with a bit of trapped wind for me. I have had very bad period pains in the past, so I suspect that perception of period pain probably varies almost as much as perception of labour. With DD, I kept on waiting for it to hurt more than my worst period pains, and it never did (apart from the pressure on my spine during pushing). With DS, iit did hurt more, but I made cool endorphins and was too high to care.

Like really strong period cramps , but deeper Inside at the core of my pelvis area .
It felt like big twists of my insides .
I didn't have back pain at all , just intense cramping of contractions then quick labours .

Ds was back to back too so I can identify more with Running than others.

When I tried to 'breathe through the pain' it literally knocked the wind out of me! Worst thing ever! Thank god for epidural after going through them every 1 min for 20 hours.

Similar to others period pain that I could feel increasing until died down again, not crazy painful and i started at every 4 mins then 2 quick ish labours i thought theyd be worse but at hospital was 6 cm already and had epidural which was fab

After a few hours of period type pains, like someone had a belt that they were tightening round my stomach/middle. Enough that I kept thinking my PJs had some how got too tight and I had to pull them, away from my body.
So like a rope, tightening around me. That was the middle bit.
By the end- total agony but that's why epidural a were invented!

With DD1, pressure. No pain.

With DD2, period pains. Not as bad as the period pains I had as a teenager.

I was induced with my first. Then second came natural. Both pains actually felt the same. I got really back pains in my hips, just like af pains for me but of course 100% worse. Now pg with number 3 and thinking omg it's going to happen again.

Started off just like period pains, turned into worse period pains, then felt like something was wrapped round my bump, squeezing and pressing down at the same time.
Can't remember the later stages tbh (despite no drugs!) but I clearly remember crawling up and down my stairs like gollum a couple of hours before she was born, thinking it was the worst pain I'd ever been in in my whole life and being willing to do ANYTHING to make it stop.
Pretty much the minute she was out, I felt like Superwoman. Could have conquered the world. Was on a massive high for a good week and it was bloody brilliant!

Like an adult boar was being torn from my insides every few minutes.

It started with the type of pain you get when you've got a bad tummy and need the loo NOW.
It ended with the same experience as Runningupthathill82 - back to back labour and worst pain imaginable. I literally didn't care if I lived or died by that point. Eventually I had an EMCS.

You know that feeling when you do a hopping dance around the room because you have cramp in your leg, that real intense cramp? It was like that but started inside my fanjo (obviously) and spread up to my ribs and all around my impressively wide midriff.

I won't tell you how I described it to my MW when she visited 2 days after but I do remember lying down on my side and not caring if I died

Like really really bad period pain that built up to a crescendo, peaked and then subsided for a few minutes, and got more intense as time passed. Towards the end I wasn't sure which hole the baby was aiming for as I felt like he'd come shooting out of my bum at any minute!

DS was back to back and twisted inside me for 29 hours. Id expected this as I knew his position but as a first timer obviously the sensation is unknown.it was painful enough to make me have a 29 hour on and off conversation with my dead grandmother questioning her about when she would come to rescue me. To be naked and crawling about on the floor wailing

Strangely, dealt with nothing except gas and air which arrived at 34 hours out of a 35 hour labour.

More strangely, already forgotten and its only been a month 😃 but that may well be because it was a textbook birth which went per plan really. The birth was actually euphoric and empowering and despite 35 hours with a back to back baby - exactly as empowering as I had had in mind. Upright and bold 😃