Feel like crap! Is something happening?

[nym]

Need some advice from ya mamas..

This is my second baby, but my first was a c-section at 38 weeks for pre-e, so I didn't get this far with him. While I was really sick with him I didn't have a lot of BH, or dropping (he was breech to transverse) so I don't know what to think here. I am 39w4d right now and I feel like I am going to fall apart!

At my last mw appt 5 days ago the baby had dropped some, but was not engaged. I have been feeling crampy, like a bad period for days. I have really strong BH that make things hurt, down into my bum, and everything.

Today though I feel like I can barely walk. I don't know that the baby has dropped anymore, but everything hurts. It hurts in my pelvic region, it hurts at the bottom of my tummy, I can barely walk. The BH make me have to stop and think through them. The pressure is intense at times, especailly when the BH hit!

I have felt my cervix before, about 5 days ago it was soft and posterior, but I could just feel the os, now I can't reach it. Is this good? Or bad?


I dunno, I just need some advice or comiseration from mamas that have been in labour. I dunno what it is like, and am hoping that this intense pain and pressure down there means something will happen soon.

[Marlet]

Don't know what to tell you! Sorry you are feeling so crappy. I have felt pretty crappy myself these past few days. Hope someone here can tell you something.

Question though...what is os in regards to your cervix? I've seen the term a few times now but have no idea what it is!

[LinzluvsGJ]

To me it sounds like you've dropped more... I've been having the same type of back/hip/pelvic pain to the point that it can get painful to walk at times.

[mightymoo]

nym - how are you feeling today? I posted this to another thread, but the things you are describing sound like they will help you make progress, as awful as you feel. Every time I tell my midwife my hips hurt she gets all excited and tells me how its the relaxin helping my hips stretch and how this is a good thing, etc. I remind myself mentally that I need her at the birth and so strangling her is not an option. j/k

Originally Posted by Lizabethian

Question though...what is os in regards to your cervix? I've seen the term a few times now but have no idea what it is!

The cervix (normally) is like a closed tube. It has two openings, these are called 'os'. There is the one that is external, in the vagina and the one that is at the top near the baby. The cervix doesn't necessarily open both os simultaneously. Often the external one will be open more than the internal one, and for the purposes of getting the baby through, they both have to open, so midwives are usually referring to the internal one when they talk dialation. Eventually when you've effaced enough the cervix isn't really tubular anymore. So if you are checking yourself, you can often reach up and feel the external os open like a fingertip - but the internal one still may be closed. I hope that helps!

[Nora'sMama]

Dumb question, but is it always obvious when the baby drops? I am feeling more pelvic pain and it's harder to walk the past couple of days and I am also feeling totally crappy, but I thought that when the baby dropped it was unmistakeable so I didn't think that was it.

[annakiss]

No, not unmistakeable. Completely mistakeable, actually. I don't know if or when I ever dropped the last time and this time I felt like it might have happened and there was a head firmly planted and yet today the head is up and moveable again.

[Marlet]

[QUOTE=mightymoo The cervix (normally) is like a closed tube. It has two openings, these are called 'os'. There is the one that is external, in the vagina and the one that is at the top near the baby. The cervix doesn't necessarily open both os simultaneously. Often the external one will be open more than the internal one, and for the purposes of getting the baby through, they both have to open, so midwives are usually referring to the internal one when they talk dialation. Eventually when you've effaced enough the cervix isn't really tubular anymore. So if you are checking yourself, you can often reach up and feel the external os open like a fingertip - but the internal one still may be closed. I hope that helps![/QUOTE]


That helped a lot! Thanks! So when you are self checking you are feeling the outside opening and not the internal one? Do they dialate together or whenever they feel like it?

[mightymoo]

Originally Posted by Lizabethian

That helped a lot! Thanks! So when you are self checking you are feeling the outside opening and not the internal one? Do they dialate together or whenever they feel like it?

Well, I can only reach the outside anyway, so that's all I'm checking - you'd have to reach further in to feel in inner one, I suppose its possible. I'm no expert, but I think in general in late pregnancy the outer one is just a bit more dialated until you become mostly effaced then they pretty much are one at that point anyway. (The tube flattens out so to speak)

[nym]

well I dont know whats happening but yesterday I had my mw visit and I was 80% effaced and 2 cm. She stripped my membranes and last night I started having contractiosn. Nothinng too serious, but today they have been 5-15 minutes apart for most of the day, with a break of 30-45 minutes here and there.

[jjquilter]

My DH and I have a running joke that Braxton and Hicks got a lot of credit for naming a phenomenon that doesn't really lead to anything. We think we'll call "the car not starting because you haven't put your key in the ignition" by our name, just to be famous.

BH contrax just mean that you're not in labour. So how do you know the difference between a BH contraction and a labour contraction? Well, if you haven't had the baby a reasonable amount of time later, than it was a BH contraction. Ha Ha. Sadly, that's the way it is.

I had 10 weeks of intense BH contrax that didn't go anywhere with DD -- sounds just like yours, nym. I was 2.5 weeks late when we finally figured out that the contrax I was having might be real. NOTHING changed, but that I didn't get those 30 min. breaks one day, and by the evening they were more intense. Slightly.

This time, I've been having the same contrax for the past few days and am just hoping that it's the same story... that I won't go into labour in the next week. Oh, and I had my membranes stripped 2x with DD, which didn't help.

Good luck! Sucks, eh? At least you'll be farther along when you finally ARE in labour!