The Beginning of Labour? {Flashback Friday}

Carrying on from my Flashback Friday photo last week when was nearing the end of my pregnancy; we have reached the stage of the gory details. I'll try not to be too explicit but look away now if you are squeamish  My due date was the Thursday 25th August 2011; my last day in work was on the Friday before I was due. That week I was so sure that I would be early but Thursday came and went without any signs. As my husband is a teacher he was off work for the summer holidays so I was really hoping that our little squatter would hurry up. At our ante-natal classes the lady had told us how unpredictable labour can be and that it is difficult to be prepared. In hindsight, through my own experiences and speaking to other Mums, I know how true this is; at the time I was so naive and really believed that it would be fairly straight forward!

The Friday after my due date I woke up around 2am with bad pains; I didn't know if it was the real thing or not so I managed to dose until around 6am when I decided to get up and see if they were going to subside. They were fairly regular but still manageable so I thought I'd better make myself comfy for the day and see how they went. My Mum called round with some supplies and had me sat on a towel in case my waters broke. It was getting on for early evening and we'd started timing the contractions, they were starting to feel more uncomfortable and sometimes were very quick and sometimes further apart. I was starting to feel anxious about going through the night so we phoned the hospital and they suggested that I came in to get examined. On the way there the pains started coming thick and fast but in the hospital they started to slow down again. We were waiting a while to be seen; the examination was pretty painful and I was so upset to be told I was barely at 1cm. Looking back I should have known really because although they were fairly regular the pain was still manageable I was just so sure that after having contractions all day that I would be further along! 

On the way home I was feeling very disheartened. We got back in and went to bed, I'd taken some paracetamol in the hope of getting some sleep. I just couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep and I was keeping James awake; I thought at least one of us should sleep so I went downstairs with my duvet. Saturday night and Sunday day is such a blur, I couldn't stomach much food or drink, I didn't sleep and I was starting to feel really fed up; this was far from the birth I had imagined! I was starting to struggle through the contractions and again they were sometimes really close together than other times 10 minutes apart. 

Late on Sunday night I was feeling pretty down; I just wanted to know that I was making progress and I had a horrible feeling that I wasn't. My waters still hadn't broken but I was definitely starting to feel like I was in labour! We phoned the hospital again; I couldn't speak through the contractions so the midwife again asked me to come in to be examined. I felt relief that I would at least know how far along I was but I was also terrified that I would get there and would still not have reached established labour. We set off again and it was just me and another woman in the waiting room, I couldn't sit down and was leaning against the wall each time I had a contraction. She was in a similar state, went in before me and was sent home. I felt dreadful as I was called in to be examined, I really didn't want to be sent home again...

I'm linking this up to Mummy Mishaps and Real Housewife of Suffolk Country.