Is This Early Labor??

I think maybe I've been having some contractions, but I'm not sure. And even if they are, they could be Bra.xton Hicks contractions, and not real ones. I honestly just don't know. It's very frustrating to not be able to figure it out and know if I'm actually in labor or not!

I started timing them, but I know I'm not timing them right, because it's hard to figure out when to press start and when to press stop. These contractions don't really hurt, they're just tightness with pressure. Different from the Bra.xton Hicks contractions I've had before - more intense - but I've read that even BH contractions can change and get stronger and more painful towards the end. So who knows. They're all over the place in terms of how long they last and the intervals between them, so either it's nothing, or my timing skills suck, or they're just not "ready" to be timed yet, since it's so hard to figure out how to time them. It also seems to be a little more painful and noticeable when I stand up and walk around than when I sit or lie down, which does make it sound like BH. But they're still more intense and more frequent than they've ever been, which is why I'm confused.

My lower back hurts, but that's been fairly consistent since I sat on the exercise ball for a while earlier today. I do think it hurts more now than it did earlier, but it's not coming and going with the contractions, it's consistent... So what the hell does that mean?! Anything?

I called my mom to tell her I'm not going to come out to their house for dinner tonight, since I'm not sure what's going on. She was cooking dinner, so I told her to finish cooking, take her time, and come over here. Which has been the plan all along - for her to come here once I go into labor. The problem is, I don't know if I'm in labor or not! But, she's coming over, so we'll see if we can figure out what's going on, see if anything changes, and go from there.

I also called my doula to see if she could help me figure out if these are real contractions or not. From how I described them, she thinks they're BH contractions, but said it could still be "the start of something". She said BH contractions are usually higher up in your belly, and real ones are very low down. These have been more from the middle of my belly, like where it's the biggest, and below that. There's been pressure (I could swear I can feel the baby moving further down!), and some almost stabbing-like pains shooting down into my vagina occasionally, but not consistently with each contraction and not all that often.

So, who knows. I'll keep you updated when I can... My mom doesn't know about this blog and I don't want her to, so it may be hard to update when she's here, but I'll try!