False labour or the real deal?

[Dollywilde]

40+2 as of midnight. Had a sweep on Thursday (even though cervix was pretty unfavourable at that stage) and lost a big chunk of plug yesterday at noon followed by bloody mucus from about 3pm, called midwife who said old blood in mucus was fine and probably after effects of the sweep. Spent lots of yesterday walking and on the birthing ball.

Since about 9 last night I’ve been getting cramps which ramp up and feel like they’re blowing my uterus up like a balloon then deflating it? The cramps feel a lot like period pains and radiate across my hips. At the moment they’re only about every 10 mins though (lasting about 50 seconds) and while they’re painful, I wouldn’t have any issues talking through them or anything. I managed a couple of hours sleep between 12 - 2.30 but woke up with them and now can’t get back to sleep, have been walking around doing laps of the living room to see if they ease off (and bouncing on the ball when the laps get boring!) and they just seem to be staying the same - not getting stronger but equally not getting weaker.

Basically on the one hand the ‘surging/wave’ thing feels like it could be the real deal but the fact they haven’t got any closer together or more painful in 6 hours (during which I managed to sleep for 2 hours) makes me wonder if it could just be false labour! Appreciate I’m throwing this out there in the middle of the night but any thoughts from anyone who’s done this before/has more knowledge than me!?

Hi OP , deffo sounds like the start of things! How exciting!

How are you this morning x

I agree, sounds promising. How are you getting on now?

Yep sounds like the start. Sleep if you can, eat some high energy food and get moving.

That sounds like the real deal to me but if it's your first it can take a while in the first stage. I had just over 24 hours of labour from the first proper contraction. They will eventually start ramping up - I seem to remember you should call midwife when they are 5 mins apart and lasting for 60secs or more

They’re still going but are mild enough that I’ve been dozing from about 6am - 8am. Back wandering around and trying to stay active but this is driving me mad, it’s basically been 12 hours already so surely it can’t be real contractions? Things would be feeling a bit more - I don’t know, serious but this point surely? Still got gaps of 10 mins or so and can easily talk through them getting a bit fed up really...

Completely normal OP - is this you first baby? Is baby back to back? Just remember that each of those surges is doing something, try not to get fed up. Your body needs lots of oxytocin (the happy hormone) so try and do things that make you smile; kisses, cuddles, chocolate etc. You’ll be fine!

@TwinkleStars15 yep, first baby (that obvious? ) - will try and get relaxed. So hard though. Baby not back to back at last appointment so don’t think so, cervix still had a lot of work to do when checked on Thursday, but like you say I guess it’s all going in the right direction...

Each contraction is working it’s magic, embrace them whilst they are relatively painless! By the time you are in active labour, these contractions may have got you quite far Rest whilst you can, keep dozing in between, eat and drink plenty, have a warm bath, relax if you can. Good luck!

Exciting, sounds like the real thing! Put something funny on the tv and get bouncing and rotating your hips on your birthing ball good luck hopefully it won’t be too long before you meet your baby x

Go for a long walk op. Preferably in a town where you can stop easily and get a drink etc. Will help get babies head in the right position and is a good distraction. Also, not all first labours are long so be prepared that it might ramp up! I had a sweep with my first and was holding my daughter the next morning after a very normal day of pottering around. How exciting. I'm sat cuddling my 6 week old now xx

Sounds like it! How exciting!

My third labour was like this. Really mild contractions that were sporadic all evening/night. I just tried to get in as much sleep as I could.

Then come 7.30am they really ramped up. Went from 4-10cm in about half an hour. She was born by 8.30am

My first labour started at midnight on a Friday and I gave birth 9.11 Sunday morning.
Started with niggling pain and then contractions about 9 p Saturday.
Good luck op