All you already mummas! Need your advice... & labour vibes & ... lol!

I *think* i am in pre-labour but nothing that seems good enough to call the hospy yet - especially if it's a half hour drive in only to be sent home again - so i intended to call when i'm more sure and hope that by then it isn't too late...
Have been having contractions since 5am (it's now 9:15am) They were all consistent, sixty second, ten minutes apart until seven, then i finally got back to sleep and woke with searing pain at eight... woohoo, another hour at least i guess, lol. I assume that they were about ten mins apart while i was dozing, because i tended to wake through a lot of them but straight back off to sleep.

Now they're irregular and all over the place so i'm not really sure... They seem to come in two lots. One in 5-7mins for about forty seconds, and then another 2-3mins later for at most fifteen. Then 5-7, 1-3 etc. And then sometimes it'll be back to 8-10 minutes again.

I'd put it down to painful BH except that they keep going wherever i am / what im doing & i generally have a fairly high pain tolerance and this is really starting to get to me... and letting me know i need something like a baby rusk for labour because i swear i can't stop biting on my lip! ... And they're not like the BH i have had before either.

They're also not going from lower to higher like i keep reading about - i feel like i've been stabbed about three inches below my belly button and like the knife is slowly being twisted and scrunching all my insides up... & only sometimes they go right through my back... so i don't know. They're like waves of period pain i guess.

ETA: I haven't had any signs of a show at all. Which i know isn't unusual but thought i would add. The pain with the "contractions" (who knows), extends right into my upper thighs as well. And the only other thing i've noticed is that i seem to be getting rid of a lot of gas...

Any ideas????