does prelabour always occur?

I've been reading lots on here about girls having prelabour for days or weeks before actually going in to labour, but what i was wondering is can you go into labour without having this prelabour stuff first? The reason is I've been having what I assume are braxton hicks but they are soooo mild, like more of a brief uncomfy feeling than anything major or even slightly painful. I know I've got a couple of weeks left, but I thought that the braxton hicks would begin to get stronger by now. Does the lack of action in my uterus mean that I am going to go late? (which i'm kinda expecting) or does it not really matter about this prelabour stuff?

Thanks (hope this makes sense!) :)

I didn't get prelabour. I never had a single BH contraction that I noticed and then 4 days before my due date I had a huge show and got period type lower back pains. Thinking I was starting prelabour I tried to keep busy but within 3 hours I was in established labour (and probably sooner really but I was convinced it couldn't start that quickly and was trying to be strong with the pain :lol:). My labour was then 17 hours and progressed so well- lack of prelabour didn't stop my uterus from knowing what to do!

Not everyone will have pre-labour, and it doesn't mean anything in regards to how your labour will be. Make the most of it if you don't LOL - its awful because it nearly always happens at night :rolleyes: I only had it with two of my pgs.

I had no show, nothing at all. I felt "weird" all day previous to the birth and around midnightish felt I needed to pee (but nothing) and 3 1/2 hours later my little man was born, so nope you don't necessarily have prelabour and if I did I didn't notice it. I think about an hour after thinking I needed to pee (got up about 3 times in an hour...lol) I was actually contracting at around 4-5 mins apart! Forgot to say... my waters didn't even break, they did this at the hospital. I felt I needed to push before leaving home, so probably a good thing they hadn't broken..lol oh and didn't tell DH this until after birth ;)