Braxton Hicks Contractions

Last night I was having some serious Braxton Hicks contractions.  It was kind of confusing and I didn’t know what was going on until I looked it up.  At first I thought the baby was moving around a lot with hard jerky movements.  Maybe it was and that combined with the contractions was what I was feeling.  Basically my whole belly tightened up and felt very firm and I felt a painful cramp.  Not quite as bad as a menstrual cramp but definitely painful to the point where I was not going to get any sleep.  At first I thought it was the baby moving and tried to calm it with some soothing melody music but it just kept happening.  My back started hurting really bad too.  Each contraction only lasted a few seconds but they kept coming.  I started to get concerned when they didn’t stop.  It went on for 3 hours!  From about 12:30am to 3:30am.  I didn’t think I was in labor because they didn’t seem painful enough and they weren’t getting worse or more painful.  They just weren’t going away.  It was literally like my whole stomach got this firm tightening, I had a cramp and the baby started wiggling and punching around like crazy all at the same exact time.  And it hurt!  I practiced some of my labor breathing and kept changing positions and getting up to walk around.  After the first hour and it didn’t stop I started to get concerned and looked it up online.  Everyone said that it was Braxton Hicks and they can happen way earlier in pregnancy than I am now.  I’m sure I’ve probably had some before but this is the first time I really felt them a lot.  Now I know why my doctor keeps asking me if I feel any tightening every visit.  Most people say they only last twenty to thirty minutes but this was 3 whole hours!  Still, the consensus is that it’s not an indication that I’m going to go into labor soon.  There’s still no way to tell when that will happen.  Everyone says when you actually go into labor you’ll know because the pain will get worse and worse and start to feel pretty unbearable.

On top of that, this morning when I woke up I started leaking milk.  The most I have so far.  There was a pretty big wet spot.  I’ve actually been leaking quite a bit the past couple of days from both breasts.  I looked up if it was a sign of labor coming soon but the consensus was once again no.  It can just happen any time.  I guess I’m really just looking for any warning signs that it’s going to happen.  It’s so hard not knowing when it’ll be the real deal and not being able to plan for it.  At least I know I’ll be able to breastfeed my baby right away.  Milk production doesn’t seem like it’ll be a problem.  Here’s hoping that goes smoothly.

I also noticed the past couple days that my discharge was a lot thicker.  When I went to the bathroom today a clump of it came out.  I’m wondering if it was my mucus plug.  I haven’t seen any blood at all (aka bloody show) but my doctor said I might not notice it when it comes out because it might just look like a discharge and there might not be any blood.  She just wanted to warn me that there could be blood and not to panic.  Again, I guess I’m just looking for signs I might go into labor soon but again the mucus plug can come out weeks before you actually go into labor so that’s not an indication it’ll happen soon either.