Gun, consider yourself jumped

Last night, after a nice day and a free dinner at our town's elementary school of spaghetti and bread and salad, I put my feet up, watched a little TV, then we went to bed at 9:30 to read. I felt like there was some contraction action, so around 10 we started to time them. Start-to-start, they were 3 minutes apart. That's good. They seemed to be getting stronger and stronger as time progressed, so we called the hospital and, after timing them for a while, I called my parents. They hopped in the car to get down here to be here for P, and at 2 we took off for the hospital.

We were checked in, I peed in the cup, changed into a gown, hopped into the bed, and got strapped up to the monitor. 20 minutes went by, the heartbeat was good, the contractions were regular. They checked "under the hood" - about 2 cm dialated. I was told they would check me again in a couple of hours, so G got into his temporary bed, and I stayed in mine, and we got an hour or so of sleep. When they checked again, I had just woken up, the contractions had slowed, and I was still only 2cm dialated.

So the hospital bounced us.... home we came at 5:30am, tails between our legs. It's a little embarassing to admit that I didn't know what was going on with my body, but it's hard to tell. Contractions and cramps are all painful, and they just get more so as they progress. Does it hurt now? Yes. Does it still hurt? Yes.

We got home, and went back to bed. My mother-in-law called us at 7:15, announcing that she was at the hospital. Where we were not. So we're having a little family reunion this morning. My mom's making pancakes, G is trying to finish up some work, my dad took P to get some bacon, my mother-in-law's chatting with my mom about all of their grandbabies. And me? I am doing what I've been doing: waiting, feeling contractions (some strong, some not), and I will wait until the baby is crowning, probably, before heading up to the hospital again.