Contractions and other signs

[Nannysbaby]

DD EDD is 11 days out...she has been having contractions that are 5 minutes apart for 2 days straight. Nothing makes them stop, bath, sleep, etc. She says about half of them are enough to make her pause and breathe through them.

I don't want to be gross here, but she has lots of string-y mucus that has been coming out for about a week now. Two weeks ago she was 1cm, has not had a vaginal exam since that time. This is her second child.

She told me today that she thinks she is going to labor like this for 2 weeks. I know that she is getting discouraged. Any tips for keeping her encouraged and content?

[courtenay_e]

encourage her to think about the wisdom of her body. Sometimes our bodies need or our babies need slow, more gentle births. Give her a pedicure (or a gift certificate), make her a bubble bath (or just a bath if she's prone to yeast, maybe with essential oils or salts or both) with candles and quiet music, give or get her a massage...

Encourage her to enjoy the last few days that she's pregnant, and encourage her to trust her body and her baby to labor the way they need to labor. DO help her to get a great deal of rest, make sure that she is WELL nourished and WELL hydrated. THis COULD go on for weeks. I've known it to happen for a month or more...however the liklihood is that it won't, that she'll have the baby soon, and that when she does, she'll have done a LOT of the work already by the time she is in "hard" labor.

On the other hand, do ask her about how the baby is positioned. It is possible that her body is trying to get the baby into a more optimal position.

[SublimeBirthGirl]

I had a lot of this with my 2nd. Started hardcore at 38 weeks and she was born at 40 plus 6. She should try to get as much rest as possible, and stay distracted when she's up during the day. A small glass of wine was a godsend for me, when I was exhausted and needing sleep but contracting.

When active labor finally hit, she was out in under 4 hours. Hopefully that'll be the case for her too!

[Nannysbaby]

The contractions actually started coming every 3 minutes yesterday for several hours. She told me that she thought she would have him... No baby yet.

We are taking the kids to the zoo today, that should keep her distracted for a few hours anyway.

She is telling me that now she feels them very strongly in her cervix. I used that opportunity to encourage her that every contraction now was gently opening up her cervix and would not have to be done later in active labor. She smiled.

BTW-She is still contracting every 5 minutes today.

[SublimeBirthGirl]

I feel her pain! Maybe the baby is gettin into the best position, or her hormones are balancing, or something. For whatever reason, the baby needs this. It'll be over soon.