Understanding and Managing Potential Preterm Labor: A Personal Story

Question
My name is Carolina Perales, I am 22yrs old married with 1 child. Last menstrual period was on 12/22/04.

My first pregnancy was great, but my daughter was born at 36 weeks making her premature. I am now 34 1/2 weeks pregnant with my second child and what a big difference! At 32 weeks I started to have contractions that were 3 to 4 minutes apart but they were not strong enough to dilate me. My doctor put me on watch for pre-term labor. At 33 weeks, I went back to my doctor and told her that I had been having some strong contractions so she checked me and told that was 1 cm dilated and that, that was ok. Well, about two days ago I started to get really strong contractions, I would get one or two back to back and then I would get regular mild contractions. With the strong contractions I can't walk around or move that much and they leave me breathless. Here are some of the symptoms I get: back contractions,dull ache in the lower back,lots of pressure in the lower abdomen, tightening of the stomach, pinching in the vaginal and bladder area with every uterine contraction and strong contractions, increased discharge that is watery and slimy, urinating every 5 to 10 min. and no sleep. All of this has been happening for the past 3 to 4 days. Could this mean that true labor is about to happen? Or should I not worry? Oh Yeah, No bloody show or water broken. Please help me. Sorry this is so long. Thanks

Answer
At this point, you are having Braxton-Hicks contractions. They cause pain in your back or low in your vaginal area, and are irregular. They rarely last longer than 40 seconds each. Eventually you will start to have contractions at the level of your belly button that occur every 6-8 minutes (from the beginning of one contraction to the beginning of the next contraction) and each contraction will last for 45 seconds to 1 minute. When this continues for a full hour, we consider you to be in labor. You can remain at 1cm dilatation for several weeks.