false alarms, how many of you have had them?

[TheNatty]

was so convinced i was in labour last night, the contractions were regular as clockwork, and getting worse.
then suddenly stopped.

midwife said i hadnt dialated at all and had been getting them for 4 hours at that point!

who else has had this and when DID you have your baby?

I kept getting practice contractions all weekend. They started to get really strong and painful, so I eventually rang the hospital for a check up as I was still two weeks off my due date. My dd2 was born an hour and a half after we arrived at the hospital and I never even had time for an epidural. If you are in any doubt DO NOT HANG AROUND!

ds2: i thought i was in labour every other day for NINETEEN days. it was mental. with hindsight I was probably trying to go into labour each of those times, but because he was 11lb 11oz and 61cm long, his head get getting wedged off my cervix and didn't help keep the trigger going long enough. this was MW and hospital MWs theory after his birth. he was clearly scrunched in one side.

Bloody hell Merry - 11lb 11oz! You deserve a medal or three.

With my DC1 I had many many false alarms from about 30 weeks! I kept getting painful contractions (period pain type but worse) every 5 minutes, for several hours, eventually went in (this happened on at least 4 occasions) to be monitored and then contractions stop. Basically they ended up all being Braxton Hicks - don't let anyone tell you they are painless, mine never were. Eventually DC1 was induced 10 days late!!

I had two with DD1 but both times because I thought my waters were leaking - both times it was just a gush of discharge! Sorry for TMI. My waters did break at T+11.

With ds I had 4 (2 after sweeps) over the space of a week. In the end I was induced so I'm still none the wiser about how I'll know this time around !

I had none with dd but had one false alarm 4 weeks ago, ended up with a stay in hospital. They decided it was BH mixed with a tummy bug.

At about 5pm today I started getting pains and they are still around, not regular but I feel like something is happening. I'm 36+2 so I want to hold on for a week. It's so bloody hard to tell because I honestly can't remember how it felt last time. I just remember it hurt. Allot.

I had one last night! Period type pains - completely convinced that I was on my way. All quiet today but wanted to finish my hospital bag at 2.30 am. Very worried as my DH is away with work tomorrow night and I haven't got any nursing bras or newborn hats.

x

Second time I had one at 40+4, contractions every five mins for 5 hours, went in to be monitored and they stopped as soon as the monitor was on. The Midwife asked patronisingly
"Is this your first?"
I said "no my second",
She said "you must have forgotton then, we don't want to see you unless you can't walk with the pain"
I said "I don't want to see you delivering my baby then" and flounced off as best you can at nine months pregnant.
I had contractions every night until 41 weeks when they carried on then was too scared to say anything until about 3pm incase it was the evil midwife.

Ugh. I'm 39+5 with dc2 and have been kept up with regular/painful contractions every other night for the last 10 days. It's exhausting!

This morning I really felt like it might be the real thing. Most nights the contractions have stopped around dawn, but this morning they kept going (quite spread out, but quite painful). At one point they were lasting 2 mins every 7 mins. Then I fell asleep and they stopped completely. So frustrating!

Hopefully this is my body preparing for a nice quick 'n' easy labour (a girl can dream!).

I found this article quite encouraging: warm up labour

What a fantastic article - many thanks for sharing that footstep.

Very timely for me at the moment, although my warming up is taking place in the day so I can still sleep (but am horribly grouchy with the children!).