I woke up an hour or so ago, at around 4 a.m., with a strongish menstrual-cramp type pain. I'd been having some "low-grade" cramping the whole day, but sometimes that can be gas in disguise. I figured this night-time cramp was an anomaly, so I went to the washroom and climbed back into bed. Just as I was ready to fall asleep, along came another one.

I've had 5 of these in the past hour. They last about 5-15 seconds or so and they're not very frequent, but they are really quite uncomfortable. My gut reaction is to stop breathing and tense up my body against the pain (this is certainly not helpful or recommendable). Because these are so different from the Braxton-Hicks contractions (painless!) I have experience so far, I'm thinking this is the start of labour...

I don't know if that means that William will be born soon or even today, but definitely things seem to be progressing. I can't get back to sleep, so I took a tylenol, ate some cereal and am now trying to distract myself. If these cramps subside, then I will take a nap later on today, though maybe I'll hold off on the shopping (we were going to go shop for posters/pictures to hang on the wall in the nursery)....

One thing that these contractions make me aware of is that I doubt I will refuse an epidural when the time comes! I guess I'm a woos after all!! :-)

I'll keep y'all posted.