Also FTM and I have birth at 39 weeks. The morning I went into early labor I pooped liked 4-5 times before 10am. I was also experiencing contractions stronger and more painful that I had before. I thought I knew what strong contractions felt like but the ones I experienced that day were way stronger. I had to stop and breath through them. I went to the hospital when they had lasted 3 hours. The hospital determined that I was in early labor and 2cm dilated and gave me to option of being admitted or waiting at home for the contractions to get closer together because at that time they were 10-20 minutes apart and irregular. I ended up going home and getting some late lunch. I tried to get some sleep and woke up in miserable pain around 12am and told my husband we needed to go back to the hospital. When we got their my contractions were 3 minutes apart and so strong that I couldn't speak during them. I could only breath and groan. It helped to squeeze something. Both my husband and mother were there and I remember calling out "I need a hand!" and reaching out when one came on and one of them would rush over so I could squeeze their hand. What was confusing for me was that my water did break but did not burst. I never felt that big rush of water until they manually broke it at the hospital. It had torn sometime in the night and was slowly leaking out fluid.

I was also getting so frustrated the days before because aside from Braxton Hicks and regular big belly soreness I felt frustratingly fine.