How to Know When You are Actually in Labor
You are close to or past your due date and You. Are. Over. It. You want labor to start and get this show on the freaking road already! But you don’t know what you are looking for. How will you even know when labor is starting? What if your baby just falls out?
When I was pregnant with my firstborn, I would get so annoyed when I would ask people “but how will I know when I’m in labor?” and they would answer “oH yOu’Ll JuSt kNoW”. UGH! GIVE ME ANSWERS! I am here to be the person I needed. I am going to give you answers.
Contractions feel differently to everybody. I asked in my Facebook group for New & Expecting Moms for them to describe contractions to someone who has never experienced them. Some of the answers were “a very annoying constant pain”, “intense period cramps”, “like your body is ripping in half”, “like your abdomen is being electrocuted”, “like intense diarrhea pain” and “terrible lower back cramps” . I swear I’m not sharing these to scare you but to show you that there is a range of how they can feel and where you can feel them.
So since everybody’s experiences are different, let’s talk about the things that are constant and more reliable for you to know you are in labor!
4-1-1
This is also sometimes 5-1-1. Okay, cool, but what does that mean? Your OB or midwife will tell you to call them or head into the hospital when your contractions are 4 (or 5) minutes apart from the start of one contractions to the start of the next, lasting 1 minute from the start to the end, and this pattern continues for 1 hour. This signals that your body is getting into a pattern and labor has begun! I know the excitement of labor starting can make you want to grab your birth bag and run to the hospital, but trust me - wait until you are at 4-1-1! Not 7 minutes-30 seconds-20 minutes. It's super important for your body to be in a steady pattern, otherwise you risk stalling out and having to go home and start all over again.
Not able to ignore it
Don’t sit around with a contraction timer waiting for labor to start. You will make yourself crazy! Instead, keep living your life, when you aren’t able to ignore the contractions any longer, THEN start timing them. Some things you can do to distract yourself are stay busy until you can’t ignore your contractions any longer are:
Start making freezer meals
Bake bread
Go for lunch or a movie with a friend
Have a date night with your partner
Organize your tupperware cupboard
Longer, stronger, closer together
The only time you should ignore the 4-1-1 is if your contractions start to pick up really quickly and take your breath away and are getting noticeably stronger in less than an hour’s time. Then by all means, get yourself to the hospital! But generally speaking, your contractions will start out feeling like heartburn or light cramping and gradually get longer, stronger and closer together.
Now that you know what to watch for in early labor, let’s talk about what is NOT labor. These can indicate that labor is about to start, but aren’t the most reliable signs and you should definitely not run to the hospital.
Losing your mucus plug
You hear a lot of talk about the mucus plug in pregnancy groups. Although losing your mucus plug is sometimes an indicator that labor is starting, it is not a reliable indicator. What is the mucus plug? It is the mucus that develops in the cervix and acts as a barrier to protect the uterus from irritants and bacteria - just like your other mucus membranes do. When your cervix begins to dilate, the mucus plug can start to come out. You will either notice more stringy mucus or chunks of mucus (I know, it's just as glamorous as it sounds). Although this means that the cervix is softening and opening, it doesn't always mean that labor is going to start. You could dilate to 4 cm and stay like that for a week or more.
Nesting
Nesting is the burst of energy that many expecting moms get shortly before labor starts. When I was pregnant with my second baby, nesting looked like getting up at 4 am to scrub the oven, obsessively cleaning the silverware drawer, scrubbing the kitchen floor on my hands and knees and organizing the fridge. These spurts of energy are normal toward the end of your pregnancy and happen because the hormones in charge of getting labor started are great little motivational speakers! Buuuut sometimes, your body isn’t quite ready to get the memo and listen, so labor just doesn't start. Maybe try scrubbing that oven again?