Late Night At The Hospital

On Saturday night I was having a ton of contractions that would each last a while and they were only about 5 to 10 minutes apart. They weren't painful, so I wasn't too worried about it being real labor. I called the Labor and Delivery nurse and told her about it and she said to rest and drink a lot of water. If it continued for any longer than that I needed to call again. I did as she said, but waited two hours instead of one just to be sure they weren't going away. When I called back (around 2:00 am), I told a different nurse about it and she said I should go in to be checked.

I hung up and then began to freak out. It was late, I had not packed anything yet, and Michael was at work. I called him to let him know I was going to the hospital, hung up, took a warm shower to calm down, and left for the hospital. Michael was able to get off work and meet me there.

Once we arrived, they set us up in a room and monitored our heart rates (mine and baby's), as well as the contractions. The nurse, who was really sweet, asked us some standard questions just in case it was go-time. Like what pain level I was, what level I think I would be able to handle before wanting meds, etc.

After about an hour (like 4:00 am by this time), a doctor came in and took a look at the record of what they had monitored. I have great blood pressure (the nurse said Lance Armstrong would be proud, lol), the baby is perfect, and the contractions were sporadic. Some were 2 minutes apart, some 5, some 7...just all over the place. She did a pelvic exam (um...not exactly pleaseant in the LEAST) and determined I was 1-2 cm dilated. I was happy to hear this. However, since my contractions were not hurting and they were not consistently a certain amount of time apart, they decided it was safe to send me home. She said it could be a matter of hours, days, or weeks for me to actually go into active labor.

We got home around 5:00 am. Totally exhausted. It was nice to hear that my body is working towards labor, kind of preparing for the big event :). I have an appointment scheduled on Friday and I'm hoping to hear a little more progress will have been made by then. I'm still having tons of contactions, I'm just grateful that they aren't the painful kind...yet!