THINGS are starting to happen.

I went to see the midwife during the week, who told me that my blood pressure and wee were "lovely". Then she had a feel of my belly and said "Oooh."
"Oooh?" I replied.
"His head's 3/5ths engaged.. I can't get a hand in there." She measured me with the tape measure. "Oooh yes. How far along are you?" she asked suspiciously.
This was a trick question I'm sure. "You just said I was 38 weeks."
She nodded. "You're 37 centimetres now. It definitely won't be long." As she finished up my notes she said briskly "Well, I'm on a study week next week, so I won't see you then. The next time I see you will be with Baby, so good luck, remember to keep as mobile as possible, don't let anyone do anything to you without your permission first." Having realised that was that, I gathered up my coat and bag and wandered out of the room feeling rather bewildered.

What? Eh? 3/5ths? How far in does this head have to be then? Does it need to be 5/5ths, or is 3/5ths enough? Everyone I asked said, "Ah yes - with second babies, the head very often doesn't engage at all." But this is my first. "Erm... not sure" came the standard reply.

What about 37 cms? "Erm... dunno."

Keep as mobile as possible? At first I thought she meant just generally, in life - which was fine - I'm active, I'll normally take the stairs rather than the lift, I like a nice walk, I try and exercise regularly. Then it occurred to me that she was talking about Labour. Hmmm.

I'd asked her about a bad backache that had woken me during the night. When I described it, (lower back, crampy, lasted for about a minute and then faded off, returned about 4 times over an hour and then just went away) she said "It was one of two things. Either it was your body having a practice run at going into labour, or you'd slept funny and woke up in an uncomfortable position. I would say it was the latter, seeing as you didn't actually go into labour." Funny sleeping position? Well all I can say is you weren't there, and it was no funny sleeping position.

This week, I have had odd squeezings and aches going on, none of which have hurt but they have made me pause, or shift about. I am assuming these are the famous Braxton Hicks contractions everyone is so keen to ask about. To be honest though, it could just old fatty Spawn shifting position, now that he's so scrunched up in there I expect it's quite a job to move around. I've also been waking up extremely early (for instance I've been awake since 4am today) and unable to doze back off. And yes, I have done a lot of cleaning and tidying. But not from any insatiable desire, it just needed doing and when else am I going to get the chance? Does that count as nesting? I thought nesting would be some obsessional need to do stuff, not just thinking "This place is a mess, I'd better get the hoover out."

And now today the backache is back. I had it last night when I went to bed, but ignored it and it went away and I went to sleep. Then around 4am - bink - it was back. The poor Husband was getting up to go to work at half four, so I lay there quietly without waking him and let the backache come and go. Which it did regularly, at dead on ten minute intervals.

After an hour of this fun and games (during which the Husband has gone off to work - I did tell him about it but reassured him that I'm fine) I'd had enough lying down waiting, so here I am, up before the birdies, trying to work out how long these backaches are taking, and how far apart they are. The Interweb tells me I have nothing to worry about yet because I haven't had a Show (jelly blob in my pants rather than No-Business-Like-Show-Business kind of show) and my waters haven't broken, and to just ignore it. Right you are.

Now I'm not saying they are, but IF they are the real deal, they don't feel like what I thought they would. I've read that they're like period pains, but this seems to be more round the back than a period pain. It's a very intense squeezing like when you've eaten something very dodgy and it's making its bid for freedom but you're not at the toilet yet, combined a bit with a period pain. I can feel it starting, then it sort of builds up and then subsides, and when it's stopped I'm completely fine again. I keep trying not to look at the clock in case it's just me being silly and thinking they're happening at set intervals, and by clock-watching I'm bringing them on subconciously.

http://www.online-stopwatch.com/

Sod this, I'm going for some breakfast and a paracetamol.