Another Braxton Hicks ?

[Sara S]

I'm just not sure I'm feeling them. The women in my birthing class describe the feeling as ... "It starts at the top of my uterus and it get really hard then, after a few minutes of the muscle being tense the feeling moves down to the lower pelvic area". Now what I feel is a shooting pain (brief) from my pelvic floor down through my vagina. I am not feeling the tense muscle spasm at the top of my uterus. Anyone else??

[Spark]

I think it REALLY depends on you and your body. I've heard so many different descriptions of what B/H feel like!

[Geofizz]

Sara, are you maybe feeling a kick instead of a contraction?

[iris0110]

Sara is this your first pregnancy? I didn't get B&H contractions with my first until about 36 weeks. Then they felt like menstraul cramps to me, and were sometimes pretty intense. This time I started getting them around 15 weeks, but they are just an odd sensation of tightness. Sometimes at the top of my uterus, sometimes in the middle and sometimes at the bottom. I have never had one start at the top and move down like you were describing. Some women don't even notice them at all.

[starparticle]

Mine just feel like my whole belly is cramping up, sometimes it makes me ache lowdown, but for the most part it is just a tightening sensation that lasts for about a minute. Sometimes they come a bunch in a row (like right now!!) and other times they are just a random occurance.

[spiralmg]

I'm due the same date (Dec 6) as Star Particle, and my sensations sound the same. My uterus gets hard all over.

But I've also been feeling some shooting pains of a couple different kinds.

Sometimes it feels like all of the lining of my vagina is really sore and painful. I think those are just ligament stretching pains.

Other times - a lot, recently - the pains seem centered in my cervix. These make me nervous because I start to wonder if I am dilating. (DS was a month early so I'm worried already about this one coming early and then tend to focus on these pains!).