Oh yeah. I knew. I had been clocking my contractions for hours, but they were erratic and not very long. Finally I gave up and went to bed. I got up an hour later to use the toilet, and WHOOOOSH, I would never have thought there could be that much fluid inside me anywhere. I was glad I was on the toilet when it happened! By the time I got to the hospital half an hour later, I was in full-on, can’t-miss-it, boy-howdy labor. Baby was born VBA2C, larger than my firstborn who was taken by cesarean as ‘too big’, 6 hours or so later.
Do y’all think that if I jumped up and down really hard my water would break?? Or does that only work for not getting pregnant after sex?..WHOOPS! THAT DIDN’T WORK EITHER!! 
Hahahahahaha (joking)…I can’t sleep. My ute (yes, I call it my ute) hurts!!! Sorry, I’m getting a little punchy thinking I might have a couple more weeks of this. Sob.
This sucks.
But I’m trying to relax!
What always worked for my wife to get into labor was an enema. Don’t know why but it never failed her.
Lots of sex can bring on labor. The uterine contractions when you orgasm can sometimes trigger real labor contractions. Plus, the prostoglandins in sperm can soften the cervix and bring on labor (obviously, this won’t work if safer sex.) When my mother’s labor with me stopped in the hospital, one of the nurses told her sometimes sex could help, and then mentioned they would all be on a coffee break for the next half hour before sending my father into the room! 
There’s horseback riding, of course.
Blue Cohosh and Bethroot (aka “Birthroot”) tinctures 15 drops taken every 15 minutes. Every 30 minutes if you puke.
uhh…
enemas are good.
cod liver oil if you get really desperate!
Of course, the very best thing to do is wait until your baby says “I’m ready to come out”, barring medical indications otherwise. And it really is the baby who decides, as science has discovered in the last few years. It’s true that most babies who are induced will do fine, but some percentage will actually not be ready yet, and will have prematurity issues. Also, induction when the body isn’t ready (and yes, I include induction techniques such as herbs and bowel stimulation in this, not only doctor-instituted) is more likely to wind you up in the surgical theater having a surgery “because your body just didn’t work right, and you had to have a cesarean to save your life” and other lies you’ll believe rather than admit you were manipulated into major abdominal surgery for no good reason. 
Been there, broke out of the lie, wasn’t easy. (Disclaimer: some cesareans are really necessary. But a heck of a lot of them are not, or were not before labor got “helped”.)
However, if you find yourself having ‘prodromal labor’, meaning nonproductive labor that goes on and on, you might try spending as much time as you can on your hands and knees. Baby’s body should (unless you have some unusual pelvic structure,or baby has a very short umbilical cord) obey the law of gravity and rotate around so that his heavy butt and back are along your abdominal wall, and he’s facing backward, and this is exactly what you hope for. Many babies do come out “sunny side up” but a distressing percentage of them wind up “cesarean for CPD” (doc speak for 'too big, won’t come out the pelvic outlet") when in fact they might have come out if they’d been sitting in the pelvis slightly differently. And prodromal labor is one of the hints that baby is lying in a posterior (back along your back) position, not an anterior (back along the front of your tummy).
So: hands and knees. Do the yoga ‘cat-cow’ position a few times, or pelvic tilts, to help baby shift position. Rest your big old tummy in a depression in a beanbag, and read a book on your tummy. Never slouch in a couch, chair, or even your car seat with your knees higher than your pelvis - sit on flat chairs, use cushions, or use a kneeling chair. Rest on your left side if you can. Anything you can do to get baby into an ideal position now (LOA - left occiput anterior, which means head down, facing toward the right of your body) will aid in an effective labor, besides having baby’s head press on your cervic optimally for dilation and descent.
I can’t promise these things will assure you a quick and easy labor. I can tell you that there are fetal positions that allow easier birth, than other positions. I can tell you my first child was taken by cesarean as ‘too big’ when in fact she was merely in a posterior lie (after 2 months of prodromal labor), and my third child, larger than the first, was born vaginally after 2 cesareans. I can promise you that it won’t hurt you to do things like…scrub your kitchen floor on your hands and knees, and it might help. Plus your floor will be clean, and it will be a long time before you get a chance to clean it really well again.
As for water breaking before labor starts, that only happens in a small percentage of labors, and it doesn’t mean anything. If it doesn’t break, it will keep that fluid in there and allow baby to wiggle around better and get into a better position, more easily than if somebody breaks it for you “to get things moving” and baby gets stuck in your pelvis in a less ideal position. And almost all membranes eventually break, usually during the pushing stage, if not broken (artificially or naturally) before then.
You can probably tell I’m a big fan of letting your body do this naturally as much as possible. Deep in the primitive part of your brain, your body knows how to deliver a baby. Mucking with that is as likely to mess things up as not (I mean honestly, think about it - all mammals creep away somewhere quiet to give birth, and any meddling can disturb their labor. Humans go to a hospital, get given drugs to make their utes work on schedule, and then surprise! in some hospitals, as many as 4 out of 10 women are wheeled out five days later as surgical patients. And in the birth climate we have now, most of those women will be forced into surgery forever after to deliver their babies, because hospitals are increasingly denying women the right to give birth after cesareans, for policy and financial, not medical, reasons.
I’m sorry this early labor hurts you. Pamper yourself. Spend time on your hands and knees. Talk to your baby. And remind yourself that you aren’t in labor yet because your baby hasn’t said it’s time to come out yet. You really honestly won’t be pregnant 6 weeks from now (though the average first-time mom delivers 11 days after her so-called “due date”, which makes me wonder why your doc is so eager to induce you before your “due date” even comes around). Be patient. Your body really does know how to do this, if you give it a chance.
When I was going through labor pains for four weeks, we really did try everything we could think of or that anyone would suggest to us, but nothing helped. I even kept working until I actually gave birth–teaching three days a week at a university, so it wasn’t strenuous, even though I was on my feet a lot.
Everytime I had a contraction, I would pray that this was IT, then I wouldn’t have another contraction for several hours afterwards.
The day I actually went into labor was actually a very quiet day. I didn’t have classes, but I went into work to do office hours and get caught up on grading. I was so overdue by this point that the doctor had scheduled a stress test for the next day, just to make sure that the baby was doing all right. (A non-stress test earlier in the week was inconclusive, since the baby appeared to be asleep at the time.) Since I had heard that the stress test could induce labor, I wanted to have every piece of homework graded so that I could give them to the substitute to give back to the students.
I was at the office until about noon, and left the lesson plans and graded assignments in the sub’s mailbox. Then I went home, ate a little something for lunch, and decided to take a short nap before going across the street to pick up our daughter at daycare. As soon as I was in bed, I conked out, and slept the soundest sleep I can remember having in a long time. Mr. Kiminy came home from work around 5, and was surprised to find me in bed and sound asleep, with no sign of our daughter. I told him Daughter was still at daycare (which didn’t close until 6), so he got her while I got up and started to get dinner together.
While I was fixing dinner, the contractions started in earnest. By the time dinner was cooked, they were about ten minutes apart. We called the sitters, and they came over to take care of Daughter (and eat the dinner I had fixed, since I was in no mood to eat at that point). We got to the hospital around 9pm, with the contractions about five minutes apart or so, and Son was born at nearly 2am.
I was extremely grateful for the nap that afternoon, but both Mr. Kiminy and the doctor were somewhat unhappy about having to stay up so late.
If you’re really worried, ask the doctor’s office about a stress test. 
Mine broke in the hospital. I left my doctor’s appointment earlier that day, on instructions to get myself to the hospital in four hours, he let me run all my other errands, since I wasn’t having any pain and was only 2 cm dilated. I got all my stuff done and went to the hospital a little early, waited about 45 minutes, got in my room, the nurse handed me a hospital gown, and on my way to the bathroom to change into it, all of a sudden I felt like I was peeing myself and couldn’t stop. That was a mop job. I offered to help clean up, but they made me get in the gown and get in bed, after sitting on the toilet for 10 minutes waiting for it to stop…and waiting…and waiting…until the nurse finally tells me that it won’t stop, not till after the baby’s born, that it will keep “refilling” itself as long as the baby is in there. Good to know.