Zander was posterior (his back to my back) so I had a lot of trouble distinguishing my contractions. I had a lot of pain in my back & it was just constistent so it was hard to tell when the contractions were coming in the early stages. I was on MSN with Cailin trying to time them & they went on for several minutes so I thought, but it was mainly the back pain that I was getting them confused with!

So yup, you can have pain in the early stages without contrations from my experience. I have also heard that some people don't notice they are in labour because they have the tightening without the pain.