Practice Contractions Can Be VERY Misleading.
06 October 2008 12:39 p.m.
It's been another interesting few days with this pregnancy.
Thursdays ante natal appointment was fine. Nothing irregular or to be concerned about.
However, after being pushed about a bit by the Doctor feeling my stomach for the position of the baby, I didn't find I was suffering from the discomfort I normally have after my examination. I didn't think anything of it at the time.
Still, on Friday morning I found I was having period like pains in my lower half of bump. They did come and go but were really mild and did not follow a set pattern, last any accountable amount of time or appear to be what I felt worthy of timing. This started around 11.30am.
Around 5.30pm, still getting the odd "twinge", I told bf I would like to go shopping and make sure the house is full of food.(!!!)
Then in the car on the way to the supermarket I told him about the pains I'd been having the last 6 hours. He looked a little shocked but I did say I didn't feel it was worth worrying about just yet as they are still few and far between.
Shopping must have done something as I did not have any more pains after that and bf went out with his friends as planned. He's always the driver so drinking is never a problem and we now look at each Friday night out being possibly the last for a while. I'm happy for him to catch up with mates once a week as he does work hard, he takes the whole of Saturday and Sunday as family time to do stuff with Matthew and myself. I am more than happy to let him have a Friday night out especially as he doesn't drink and having the car he can drop everything and get home if I need him. I do feel reassured even when he's not here.
Saturday was good. Besides having a slight cough and cold (along with the fear that my waters may break if I coughed or sneezed too hard - which I still put down to my bleed 6 weeks ago!) all was rather normal. A couple of little trips out left my pelvic bones feeling a little stiff when I was on the sofa and left a mild backache most of the evening.
Sunday was fine until around 11pm. I was getting sharp back pains and fairly strong contractions whilst watching tv. I must have made a little fuss or whimper of some sort as bf asked if I was ok. I shrugged and said "yeah fine, just more practice contractions" as I secretly thought about how much stronger than all the others these ones were! After a while, I was REALLY uncomfortable on the sofa so thought I would head off to bed. It seemed the best idea since I had the feeling that all rest I get now is precious. I did time my "pains" and found that I was getting them quite strongly and lasting a good few seconds at a time every 8 minutes in the end.
Our hospitals however, don't want to hear anything about it unless contractions are less than 5 minutes apart, have you in severe agony/swearing at your partner, you are bleeding or unless your waters break so feeling confident I was not at the point to call the midwifery team or the delivery suite, I kept calm, got warm and comfortable snuggled up with bf and eventually fell asleep. I only woke twice in the night, both times for the toilet and had no additional discomfort.
Today so far, baby has been very active with the twists and turns and I still fear each sneeze and cough may trigger an emergency escape route for the little one.
I really - more than ever - think that this baby will be here sooner rather than later.