Experiences of days long early labour

[Gigitree]

Hi all,

I’m a FTM and due next week. Since Sunday I’ve been having contractions on and off and losing my mucus plug slowly.

I’ve always heard that early labour can take a long time, but I didn’t realise that can mean literally days and days.
At about 1.30am today I started getting really strong regular contractions that at one point were only 3mins apart and I thought ‘finally this is it!’ This went on until they slowed at around 7.30ish and now they’ve pretty much stopped. With the occasional one every 30mins-1hr.

Has anyone else experienced a long drawn out stop/start labour like this? If so, do you have any words of wisdom/encouragement because I feel so exhausted and deflated now.

Thanks ♥️

Oh bless you that sounds tough! Mine wasn't as stop start as yours but I had a sweep at 11am in the Thursday then started cramping, had a clear out (sorry tmi!), contractions were then every ten mins for the next hour or two so rang hubby... by 5 they were every 5-6 minutes and continued at that rate all through the night... more intense but still around 5 minutes apart... I was exhausted and tearful... around 10am the next morning I felt a "rip" inside and what I thought was my waters went. The pain and intensity suddenly went up as did the frequency, baby was back to back and the only thing that eased it was standing in the hot shower with it focused on my back. I couldn't move and DH rang the hospital again... I counldht physically move and screamed they'd have to send an ambulance . Anyway, managed to get dressed and off we went to the hospital...

Got them about 11am.... 5cm dilated... eventually had him at 9pm that night after pushing for 2.5 hours. He was big and stuck, needed an episiotomy!

But second baby I was only in early labour from around 9pm and he was born 11am the next morning, after only 2 hours of active labour and about 10 mins of pushing!

Good luck!