Is labor slowly approaching?

I’m only 35+2 but lately my contractions have gotten a bit more frequent with an increase in lower back pain. I’ve also been slowly losing pieces of my mucus plug the last few days, and people have been telling me that I’ve dropped a lot (but I know that doesn’t always mean labor). Could this mean that labor is slowly approaching and I could be delivering in about 2-3 weeks? I’d like advice from people who had similar experiences. I haven’t seen my doctor since April 8th and I don’t see him again until April 26th when I’ll see him every week after that so I don’t know how dilated I could possibly be.