What did contractions feel like for you? I have a high threshold for pain and I am not familiar with menstrual cramps, so that description doesn't really help me. I'm noticing a pain in my lower stomach. FWIW, the description tightening doesn't help either my stomach always feels tight. This is my 3rd pregnancy so I should know but I don't. My water breaks early so it's pretty much a no brainer I am in labor. In the past nurses have had to tell me "that's a contraction."
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A dull pain, kind of like a bad period cramp. The only way I knew it was a real contraction was because the start and stop of it was very noticeable.
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@hilsy85: I've never had period cramps that I know of.. So I'm not familiar with what that feels like.. Is it a sharp pain?
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in the beginning it was pretty mild pain but it always had the same pattern. it would start, increase in pain (tightening), then slowly decrease in pain (relaxing), then stop. then it'd repeat. once i started timing the start and end of pain i could see it was coming in intervals and from that knew it was contractions. i've never had braxton hicks tho so i'm not sure how it compares to that.
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The best I can describe it with my second labor (vs my first which was back labor) was that it felt like something was tightening/clamping down on the area right above my pubic bone. The pain just sort of radiated out - and it hurt, really bad! Sharp pains that radiated out. It wasn't a constant pain - started out not as bad then built up and went away. Rinse and repeat. That's what the contractions felt like to me when I was in active labor.
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Agree with others - there is definitely a "crest" that only comes with labor pains. It felt like a vise gripping my insides and simultaneously pulling them apart.
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I guess a way I explain it to people is take your hand and squeeze it into a fist as hard as you can. You can tell that there is a start and stop of the contraction (or squeezing of your fist), and you can feel that your belly is completely tightening (like your fist squeezing shut). Your belly feels rock hard! It's a mild pain at first. But it gets worse as you get more and more into active labor.
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"Real" contractions make my whole body shake and my eyes pop - the pain lasts a full minute and then there's a brief break until the next one.
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With lo2, I really couldn't tell until transition. Then it felt like my entire torso was being shredded.
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Sort of like a gas cramp at the beginning really low in my pelvis and wrapping to my back. During transition it felt like someone sawing my back in two for a full minute
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I would say it started more as a throbbing pain, not really sharp. Got sharper as they progressed. And ebbing and flowing was what made me know they were contractions. They would build up to a higher discomfort, then die down.
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Both my kids' labors started with upset stomach feeling. DD1 was way more intense (felt like diarrhea cramps from the get go) and DD2 was just like that ugggh do I have to vomit or park myself on the toilet, roiling/bubbly feeling in my lower abdomen.
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You know what a blood pressure cuff feels like? How it squeezes and at the most tight it aches? That's exactly what contractions feel like for me. And then it slowly releases.
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Very low stomachache. Didn't notice them starting and stopping until later on when they were spaced out more and I was more dilated.
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By the time I knew they were legit, it felt like misery. A huge wave coming in...When I felt one coming on, I would cry in fear. It was like a huge wave building up, I could feel it and I was like "No no no no no, not another one..." and then it came crashing down on me and I literally thought I would die. When they subsided I thought I might survive. And then I would feel that wave coming in, building up again, and I just prayed I'd make it through. The pain took everything out of me.
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Super tight belly, sharp pain down low, like a strong period cramp. Although I didn't have period cramping in the front until after I had T so I didn't know it was similar at the time. Haha
I never had any real ones until I was induced though.
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The early ones felt like mild stomach cramps that came and went.
When the contractions started getting serious, they felt like when you have a Charlie horse in your calf, except it was located throughout my stomach/sides/back/entire lower torso. I couldn't talk or move due to the pain.
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At first it was like a wave of discomfort kind of washing over me, I couldn't necessarily pin it down to just one area. I just didn't feel good and had this all over kind of radiating luckiness. Eventually the waves got more pronounced and I could definitely tell that there was a beginning and an end but at first I was just kind of extra uncomfortable all over.
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Mine started as pain in the back that would wrap around to my stomach. Def like getting squeezed by a blood pressure cuff.
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@BandDmommy: You know the feeling when you are working out, and you realize there are 12 more reps, but you only had 2 more that you thought you could do. It's the feeling when you're on #9. Exhausted. Tight muscles but also a little stretched out at the same time like it's over done.
Pain, but it's a different kind of pain than regular pain.That's the best I can do.
ETA : I was augmented with pitocin so there weren't really breaks between contractions, per se, and I was exhausted and loopy. Clearly these feelings are abdominal and in my back.
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The worst I felt before I got epidural, they were really bad period cramps but lower than where it normally is.
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My period cramps are always kind of like diarrhea cramps, which are also like my early labor cramps, haha.
So diarrhea cramp for me!!
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Lo1 - water broke, then contractions, 24 hours water to baby.
Lo2 - contractions, water broke at transition which was also about 7 minutes before he was born.
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Hmmmm, it's hard to describe contractions. For me they were not like period cramps. Contractions are like waves of intensity that take over your body. It is difficult to speak and I could really only breathe and moan. During transition with #1, it felt like a train was barreling down my body. I also puked (a lot) during both my labors.
I wouldn't call it accute pain... It's not like burning or cutting yourself at all.
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