Braxton Hicks is Not the Name of a Singer

Braxton Hicks. What a simplistic name for the guessing game of your life. I live about half an hour away from the hospital and was on my second child, so the doctor was quite concerned I’d make it there in time. (HAHA). I started having regular BH contractions in my 31^st week of pregnancy. By 37 weeks, I was 3-4cm dilated with 70% effacement. By 40 weeks, I was 4-5cm and 80% effaced. People always say, you will KNOW when you are in labor. Well, if you’ve never gone through it before, you really have no idea what to expect. Even having gone through it before, I still managed a false alarm at 37 weeks in my second pregnancy. I was contracting every 2-3 minutes for hours on end and they were theoretically painful. (As in, painful until I knew what pain really was.) Sounds like labor, right? Nope, it was false labor and wasn’t progressing so they gave me a pill and sent me home. Every week I’d go to the OB and she’d say that she didn’t expect me to be back the next visit because I’d have the baby and yet every week I saw her. It became the joke of the office, like "Here I am AGAIN Doc!"

Stripped membranes didn’t work, sex didn’t work, regular daily/hourly BH contractions didn’t work, walking, stair climbing, lunges, pelvic tilts, sitting on a ball, dancing, nipple stimulation, NOTHING! So every day I was waiting out the BH, timing them out. They’d be close together, then space out, then return. So I was constantly staring at the clock. They can seriously hurt too, so you can be having BH for weeks on end and getting nowhere! I ended up doing the shower test. If I was having BH regularly, I would take a shower. If they slowed or stopped after a shower, they weren't real contractions. This worked every time to help me differentiate. The only time I ended up with false labor is the time they slowed down after the shower but then picked back up, tricking me. Real contractions will not slow down.

So what does real labor feel like? It felt like Braxton hicks, but stronger. (Bang your head now) I was having a hard time breathing through them. I couldn't sit still, I had to walk to keep busy so I didn't just sit there thinking about the painful clenching of my insides. With BH, I would have a few painful ones, then be okay even if they were still going, before they would get painful again. This time I was pacing the floor in front of Triage at the L&D hospital. As soon as I was feeling the "real" ones, I knew it. There was no guessing. So it really is true that you know. They were getting more and more painful.  I was contracting so often and struggling to breathe through them so I ended up flagging down a triage nurse to interview me quicker. (This particular hospital has you first verbally assessed in Triage, where you end up waiting forever before they get you into a back room, to evaluate you further to decide if you are in fact, in labor. Then if you are lucky, you are moved into a labor room hours later.). I told the nurse that I was contracting every 2 minutes. She had just saw me thirty minutes before and they were at 5-6 minutes then. I had walked into the hospital from the doctor's office so I knew I was already 5cm dilated. After telling her all this, I was quickly escorted to a back room. Score! No 3 hour wait for me this time, unlike when I had false labor.

So how did I go into labor exactly? I was past my due date and being evaluated by an OB in the practice that I'd never met before. She was going to be sending me to the hospital for an ultrasound and non-stress test but during the exam asked me if I wanted my membranes stripped again. I said sure and promptly had a BH contraction while her hand was up there. I was literally still on the table and the REAL contractions started. I was having BH every 10-15 minutes at the start of the appointment. By the time she was finishing my paperwork, real (& painful) contractions were happening every 5-6 minutes. By a stroke of luck, she was the on-call doctor that night, so by the time I was comfy in my labor room, she had started her shift and I was able to deliver with her. (she ROCKED).