I was lucky enough to pretty much miss the early part of my labour, so naive - I had what I thought were period pains during the day and figured that meant something would happen in about a week... like it always used to mean - they got a bit stronger and i needed a heat pack to keep comfortable, but I didn't pay them too much attention, just shrugged them off. I was confused by the book descriptions saying they started at the top and radiated down - I never felt anything at the top, and the feeling lower down was for me like my normal bad period pain days. Once my waters broke in the early hours of the following morning and the hospital said to come in, they pretty much stopped for a couple of hours. When they restarted, there was no mistaking them! Things went fairly quickly from then on. I've got my fingers crossed I might still be naive enough to miss the early ones with number 2 too lol!