Pre-labour, what is this?

Back from our babymoon and feeling all loving now I have my husband home. 2am 5 days before my due date, fast asleep in bed and I am rudely awaken by a weird feeling. I get up to the toilet and feel what can only be described as pee from the wrong hole! 

I was excited, I jumped on the bed and shook Ryan shouting it’s time! Anything I had been told by the midwives had gone out the window, I wanted to jump in the car, get to the hospital and have a baby woohoo! 

Ryan quickly brought me back down to earth and told me to chill out, I got back in bed and went back to sleep. The next morning we decided to go to the hospital and get checked over, I remember reading that you should eat a big meal before so your full of energy. With it being 7am we went to McDonalds and grabbed a breakfast, staple meal to have a baby I thought. We get to the hospital and are shown to an assessment room, at this point I have no idea what is next to come do I start pushing soon? That’s how quickly I thought it all happened… 

The nurse checked me over and took a swab to see if it was my waters that broke. 15 minutes later she returns and abruptly says your waters haven’t broke you can go home. 

Well I feel deflated, I know I didn’t wee myself I can still control my bladder! To be told that you must of wet yourself when you know you didn’t is frustrating. So we left the hospital and that afternoon we decided to take the dog for a walk, I walked five steps and felt something in my pants. I ran back to the house and went to the toilet… what the hell is that?! Sitting on the toilet googling things I didn’t want to google it turned out I had a ‘show’ if you want to be traumatised google it! 

A few hours later I started to get extreme period like cramps, I remember thinking are these contractions? How am I too know if they are? When people say you will know I think that’s a load of rubbish!! I downloaded an app to track my contractions that night I could not sleep as the contractions hurt and were every ten minutes, they started to become closer together and more intense. At 2am I said to Ryan I need to go back to hospital (the hospital was a 45 minute drive so I didn’t want to cry wolf again). Again I was assessed and the midwife said I was only 3cm dilated and they didn’t keep people in unless your over 4cm, she then gave me a sweep to push things along a bit and again sent me home. The silver lining…. the car parking machine was broken all week so we didn’t have to take out a mortgage to pay for the parking. 

Four days.. four days I had contractions for! Since when do you see on tv people having contractions for four days?! I tried everything to help with the pain but to be in constant intense pain for that long was honestly horrendous. I didn’t eat for four days in total and could just about drink water. 3am Friday morning and I couldn’t take anymore I said to Ryan we’re going to the hospital and this baby is coming no matter what. Back to the hospital we go!