Do BH *have* to be intermittent?

[goodnessgraciousgoudaoriginal]

Apologies for the potentially idiotic question, but this is my first pregnancy, and I'm pretty confused.

I'm over 39 weeks pregnant, and although I've had a few times where my bump has gone hard, it's never been painful or even particularly uncomfortable. I assumed these were occasional mild BH.

The last couple of nights however I've been waking up with quite painful menstrual cramp type things. Last night was particularly bad, and I knew without doubt that they were contractions - but they weren't "coming and going". It was constantly painful, and then every 20-30 seconds the pain would peak, then go back to just being painful.

This lasted about 30-40 minutes, but there was no obvious "contraction/rest" cycle like I'd read about.

After a while I got up (which hurt a lot) and the pains stopped quite soon after. So I know I wasn't in labour, but wtf was this?

I thought contractions were meant to build to a peak, then die down, then nothing for a few minutes, then another one. Not just constant pain, with strong peaks every 30 seconds?!?!

This only seems to happen at night as well. In the day I get the odd uncomfortable moment, and my back is often sore, but that's about it.

Any insight would be really appreciated as I don't know what on earth is going on.

Apart from them not going away everything else sounds like they were contractions. Everyone is different, so maybe that's how they feel for you? But period cramps with recognisable peak do sound like contractions to me.

I had this from 30 weeks mine was contractions due to irritable uterus.

Totally could have written this myself. I feel ruddy miserable

This has been going on for a few weeks now so sleep is becoming less and less each night. Happy to wait until babe is ready but fed up of the second guessing.

This is dc3 for me so should really know better

I had what I assumed was a continuous braxton hick, but was actually a placental abruption (it lasted several hours though, rather than 30-40 mins). I don't want to alarm you, but it may be worth getting checked out by a midwife just in case?

Sounds like the latent stage of labour - is this your first baby? My latent stage lasted days the first time! But you'll be sure when labour proper kicks in - no harm in being triaged at delivery suite if you want to see how dilated you are. Call midwives for advice.