I had pre labour for about a week before full blown labour began. It was pretty exhausting, having these constant niggles that didn't go away but never really reached a level, where I thought that it was time to go. I went in for check ups because I was a TOS and the CTG was picking the tightenings up, which were irregular. On the day before William was born, I found that I couldn't keep still and my midwife said she knew I'd be back later, so wouldn't send my notes back down to medical records.

Other little things had changed over that week - the leukorrhoea changed to a clear discharge about three days before labour started, I became really slow and methodical with all that I did.What struck me as the biggest change was that I went from being frustrated and wanting the baby out to feeling really peaceful and accepting of whatever was going to happen. I went into the hospital when I couldn't sleep through the tightenings anymore and after an unusually heavy show (it was a VBAC). I don't think I would have done anything any differently because I had a really great support group waiting for me at the hospital. As it turned out, I laboured all day with very little progress and then within half an hour went from 2cm to fully dilated, so wasn't in what was considered active labour even though I was contracting 2 minutely for 45 seconds for most of the day.