Pre-labor
For the last couple of weeks, I've been having more and more Braxton-Hicks or "practice" contractions. Each day, they are a little bit stronger and more frequent. Any kind of exertion brings them on--sitting up, standing up, reaching for something, walking around--in fact, when I walk around, I get them every couple of minutes. (I'm having one as I type this). They don't hurt--they just make my stomach feel crampy and tight and a little bit uncomfortable because they make it harder to breathe and move.
The bad news is that this doesn't mean the baby is coming right away. Pre-labor can go on for weeks. And having so many contractions is pretty draining; even though it is an involuntary and unconscious physical activity, it seems to add up to some pretty hard-core physical exercise, like doing crunches all day long while you do other things. I took a very leisurely stroll for an hour the other day with my dad, and by the end of it I found myself starving, exhausted, and feeling very hot--not from the walking, I'm sure, but because I was having contractions the whole time.
The good news is that supposedly the more work your body does in pre-labor, the less you have to do in labor, as the pre-labor contractions are prepping and conditioning your body to do what it needs to do.
On Monday my midwife told me I was still a few weeks away from having the baby. She predicts he will be around 8 lbs at birth!!
The bad news is that this doesn't mean the baby is coming right away. Pre-labor can go on for weeks. And having so many contractions is pretty draining; even though it is an involuntary and unconscious physical activity, it seems to add up to some pretty hard-core physical exercise, like doing crunches all day long while you do other things. I took a very leisurely stroll for an hour the other day with my dad, and by the end of it I found myself starving, exhausted, and feeling very hot--not from the walking, I'm sure, but because I was having contractions the whole time.
The good news is that supposedly the more work your body does in pre-labor, the less you have to do in labor, as the pre-labor contractions are prepping and conditioning your body to do what it needs to do.
On Monday my midwife told me I was still a few weeks away from having the baby. She predicts he will be around 8 lbs at birth!!