I am confused

vanverth

I lurk and sometimes respond on the 3rd tri board.  The vent postings are the best.  I am confused about something.  From what I understand, real contractions (not BH) are very painful and you can not breath or talk through them but there are girls posting all the time that they are at work with contractions every 5 minutes and they are just sitting there working away.  How is this possible or are they misinterpreting BH as real contractions or has it been exaggerated to me?  I work about 30 minutes from home and think that if labor starts at work I am calling the husband to come get me. 

AnotherChance

My experience was that the early contractions felt different than BHs, but they weren't so painful that I couldn't talk through them or do normal things.  For the first 8 hours of my labor, I did stuff around the house, ate normally, took a shower, etc.  Once the contractions were about 4 minutes apart, that's when they became a lot more painful.  And that's when we headed to the hospital.  That was my experience anyways...

kinsalebride

With me, my water broke in the middle of the night and that immediately sent us to the hospital. I wasn't having contractions at that point, so I just got changed into normal clothes, put on some makeup and heading out. As we were on our way to the hospital the contractions started. I was definitely able to talk through them but they were painful. I never had BH.

funchicken

I never had any BH contrax, but I was able to walk and talk through my contrax until I was very close to the end.  I was at 8cm when I got to the hospital, and up until that point they had been pretty manageable.  Everybody's different, so you never know until you experience it for yourself.

Good luck!

LyndaCarter

Contractions actually start very slow. Some are just like lower back pain, some are crampy type, and some are similar to BH. They do start out slow and build in intensity. They always say if you are more comfortable at home to stay there until it gets to the point you indicated where you can't talk through them and can't walk through them. Once you get there, it's time for the hospital.

My friend spent the whole day at work, drove home 1 hour away and went to bed that night all the while thinking she was just being a baby dealing with the aches and pains she was experiencing. She was in labor the whole time. Had her baby the next morning at 10:30am.