Well... last night I though this is it! It started out by me having 40sec contractions every 5 - 6 mins for a few hours. Until around 9:30pm. After finishing wathcing TV I decided to go to bed but quickly realised there would be no sleeping. Lying down through the contractions had become far too uncomfortable. So it went on like this with contractions still being 40sec long but now 3 - 5 mins apart. My husband had been sleeping through most of this because I figured that it would be better later on if he managed some sleep - although I was getting very tired. I woke him up at 2ish to ask if he thought I should call the hospital - which I did.

I spoke to the midwife who agreed that it sounded as though Labour was well on its way but she said as long as I still felt I could cope - that I should stay at home. I agreed with her. The contractions were very very uncomfortable - I could only breath through them and I could only just talk. I decided to take a coupleof panadeine to see if it would make me any more comfortable. It seemed to help and I managed to settle on the couch.

I was listening to a pod cast on my ipod and out of the blue the contractions seemed to be getting further apart. While it was welcome relief I thought that it would just be a once off. I actually drifted off to sleep.

The baby had about a minute of insane wriggling and then everything seemed to stop. The contractions drifted out to 15 - 25 minutes apart and then I got really worried - but I was so tired that I just drifted asleep for a while. At 5:30 I called the midwife again to say that it had all appeared to have stopped. She said to have something to eat and just see what happens. So basically then I fell asleep again and didn't wake up until 8:30am.

So it all just stopped - just like that! By 10:00am the contractions were back but less intense and every 20 mins - they are still every 14 -20 mins now.

It's like last night was just a big warm up - practice run!

Has anyone heard of this happening before at all? I find it strange. Baby is still moving around a fair bit in there though.