Contractions--will I "just know?"

meechrobi

I have this fear that I wont know that I am having contractions.  I know eventually they get to a point where they are really painful, but will I know when they first start?  Are they crazy painful right from the start?

Seems like such a stupid question... but this is what is flooding my mind these days.

JGirl2005

i had every contrax in the book - starting at 14wk - yup that early or sooner...irritable uterus etc

when I was in labor I just knew - they were like starting my period cramps X1000 and different than my bh contx that I felt before....

some ppl don't feel this -e veryone is different.  some people get contx or labor in their back and don't feel stomach pains.

InACitySoNice

ummm ... Not necessarily.  I had no idea.  No idea at all with my second.  Next thing you know, DH is speeding me to the hospital and 20 minutes later I'm holding my DD in my arms.  Didn't have a clue.  Even my NST didn't show contractions.  I (and my OB) just thought the baby was really low. 

Funnest day ever!

Kristin&Frank

Mine felt like BAAAAD gas pains.

princessmah

Kristin&Frank:

Mine felt like BAAAAD gas pains.

Ditto this.  I was scared I wouldn't know either.  The night before I was induced I told DH I thought I was having gas pains but then we figured out it was happening every 30-45 minutes.  I never really felt bad contrax...felt the BH earlier in the pregnancy, then the gas pains the night before and the after I was inuduced I just felt the bad gas pains until I got my epidural, then felt nothing!

SeaSoul

Hard to say...the reason I knew my contractions were real is b/c my water had broken.  But they felt pretty similar to the thousands of BH contrax I'd had previously.  The difference I guess was that they were most definitely timeable, predictable, and increasing in intensity.

efooey

I didn't have any painful contrax before real labor started, had some BH but nothing painful.  When contrax started I didn't think it was real mostly because I felt totally fine between them, it's kinda funny, you feel prefectly ok when it ends, I figured it would just be non-stop pain.  Eventually DH convinced me to start timing and they were getting pretty regular.  I guess I was in denial for a few hours but it became pretty clear, it certainly wasn't like any aches and pains I had been having.

E 

speak-ez

I didn't. I was crampy and people would say it was contractions but they weren't. I didn't really know what the mild ones felt like until I had a nst. The night before I had him I was crampy and then kept waking up with a back ache but no noticable contractions. My water broke at about 3:15 am and within an hour the real contractions started. Yes, those are not mistakable for anything else!!!