Body ready or not?

[toomuchtooyoung]

I'm 40+1 today, and my hospital have a policy of not allowing pregnancy beyond 40 weeks if you are over 38 years. After appointment this morning I have been booked in for an induction on the 27th.

However, over the weekend my body started producing a lot more discharge than normal (sorry if TMI), and especially at night when it is so watery I have taken to wearing my underwear. There was also a tiny bit of blood this morning when I wiped and a thick mucus-y looking blob yesterday.

Most of last night I also had sharp pains, not particularly regular, but across the top and down sides of the pubic bone. So the pains weren't in the place I had expected, ie/ back and across bump, and have continued all day. There are never more than 30 seconds in length and vary between 5 to 10 minutes apart.

At the hospital this morning the Dr confirmed I was still only 3/5 engaged and an internal showed a posterior cervix, that I had a very tight vagina and she could only get one finger in. She said my body wasn't anywhere near ready yet.

Can anyone shed any light on what's happening?

Bump?

it sounds like things are happening,the blob sounds like the mucus plug has come away,another sign you may be ready to go into labour.

my last baby no4,was still high up in my pelvis,when i was fully dilated,not all babys are fully engaged..

good luck and hopefully you will start yourself,i was overdue with all of mine,and with my last,they gave me 10 days,until they induce me,and on the morning on the 10th day i went myself,probably panic haha...

If I had to lay money I'd say you'd beat that induction appointment :)

With DD1 I had a really long latent labour (about 5 days IIRC) where I had erratic, not particularly painful contractions and continuous show that went from just mucous to brown through to red blood. When active labour got going it was completely different (1 hour of period-like back ache followed by regular contractions) and only lasted about 7 hours. She arrived at 41+3 weeks. My MWs reckoned a long latent phase gave your body time to do a lot of the work for labour (baby positioning, maybe a bit of effacement) hopefully without stressing you out too much so that labour can be short and straightforward. Worked for me - fingers crossed it works for you as well :)

As an aside, your hospital can recommend that you don't go past whatever gestation, but as long as you're a mentally competent adult its your decision to make - not theirs to "allow" (sorry - personal bug bear )

I'm 41+2 with DC2 and just had a second attempt at a sweep with midwife. Like you, my cervix is posterior and very thick still, but she did get a little bit of bloody mucus this time so it is starting to thin whereas she couldn't get anything last week. I'm only 4/5 engaged. So all in all, medical view is very similar to yours and I'm fully expecting to last until my induction on Friday

Having said that, I haven't had any of the other symptoms you have though and I'm a bit jealous :) It sounds to me like your body is starting the process of getting ready - maybe starting prelabour. Losing the mucus plug is a good sign, although be aware that although with many people it is a sign that they are about to go into labour imminently with others it can be a longer process. With DC1, I lost bits of my mucus plug over several weeks - but at least things were moving in the right direction and I did have a big bloody show about an hour before the back ache started, and contractions started about 3 hours after that.

My midwife has suggested I spend lots of time on all 4s as it is one of the best positions to try and get the baby's head putting pressure on my cervix, so you should maybe try that to see if it helps things along.

Good luck!

Thanks for replying everyone. Well last night was interesting! Couldn't get any sleep, pains were comng every 5-10 minutes but not lasting longer than 30-40 seconds at a time, but they really REALLY hurt.

Put on the Tens machine but didn't do anything apart from give me something to do. Ended up having a bath at 3am for nearly 2 hours which helped with the pain didn't stop the frequency, which made me think they might not be BH afterall. Also had a bloody show and a bit of diaorreah (sp)

Phoned hospital about 5am, said it sounded like early labour but to keep going till contractions were 3 mins apart. Said Tens wouldn't help as pain was around pubic bone, not in my back.

Have had another bath just now, this time did nothing for the pain. Felt inside and there's no dilation going on at all, tight as a drum!

Don't know what to do next. Any ideas?

D