Cramps? Contractions? Over-eagerness?

These last couple of weeks – combining the bed rest experience and the freezing weather (snow, ice, misery) of the last week – and the slowing down of my nesting process had gotten me into a bit of a funk. I didn’t really recognize the funk until today when the sun came out and the temperatures got up to 50. It was great! I got out to the law school and walked over to main campus for a meeting, and I really enjoyed it all. Sunlight infused Vitamin D is my friend! I feel like a million bucks.

That said, wow have I had some crazy lower back and lower abdominal pain today! It is subsiding now, but for about the last hour, it came in waves and was very frequent, but not regular. I suspect that it’s because I did a bit of fast walking from my car to the student union and around in the law school, and that has been known to trigger these sensations for me in the past. They were just more intense than I remembered them, and I didn’t experience them while I was walking this time. This time, they waited until I took Rex to the dog park. Then I sat on a bench and chatted with a lady as they came and went. They were definitely distracting, but I was still able to carry on the conversation, so I concluded that they weren’t labor, or at least, weren’t anything to worry about yet. Actually, it’s a strange reality, but as uncomfortable as these sensations were, I didn’t find them unpleasant. Rather, I find them novel. I’m curious about them.

I poked around on the internet and found one statement that said “in late pregnancy Braxton Hicks contractions may become more frequent, intense and even painful. These contractions are not strong enough to deliver your baby but they may cause the cervix to efface (thin) and begin dilating in preparation for true labour.” I’m all for that. I like the idea that while I was sitting on the bench at the dog park my body might have been doing some of the dilating and effacing that would otherwise happen in labor. I also found a statement that “real labor pains [as opposed to B-H contractions] may be in the lower abdomen or in the lower back and abdomen and may spread to the upper thighs.” That sounds like what I was experiencing, so maybe that’s what my real labor contractions will feel like, whenever they come.

In the meantime, I came across a resource that I’d recommend to any expecting-mom who has a few minutes to read an internet document. It’s not too long. It’s called “A Doula’s Guide to the Final 6 Weeks of Pregnancy: Taking Care of Yourself, and Preparing for Labor” and the URL is http://www.transitiontoparenthood.com/ttp/Doula/doulaguide.doc. I hope others find it helpful. It’s a useful reminder of some things and had some new information (at least for me).