We really thought yesterday was going to be it. I started having regular contractions 5 minutes apart and 1 minute in duration Sunday night around 8 p.m. I drank water, and that didn’t help. We called the after hours number and were told it likely was labor, and if it was still going on in two hours to go to the hospital. Two hours later, they were still coming regularly, but seemed to subside after I took a hot shower.

We headed to bed just to be woken up around midnight with them back with a vengeance. They were so painful I was crying. And, like I had been told, I wanted to rip Joe’s head off. 🙂 We waited until 2 a.m., and then headed to the hospital. When they hooked me up to the monitor there, my contractions were 3-4 minutes apart and lasting about a minute each. We thought we were going to be having a baby. But then, I was examined. I was still 1 cm dilated and 80-90 percent effaced. I have never been so disappointed in my life. We ended up leaving around 7:30 a.m. after I got a shot of medicine that was supposed to help me sleep. It didn’t work.

A few hours later, the contractions were back and, again, were 5-7 minutes apart and 1-2 minutes in duration. We waited a few hours, called the doctor’s office and were told to go back to L&D. We decided they should rename the triage room the “Schulman room”. 🙂

My contractions were about 8 minutes apart, which is in the 10-minute window the doctors told us to use when figuring out if we need to go to the hospital, but I still hadn’t made any more progress. I wasn’t surprised. I’m beginning to think my cervix isn’t up for the job. 🙂 My parents came down to hang out with us at the hospital, which was really nice. I think they were hoping I would go into labor, but I guess Lucy just didn’t feel like it. One neat thing though: every time my dad would talk to her, her heartrate would jump. I thought that was so funny.

The midwife could tell how tired I was after being up for almost 48 hours, so she gave me an Ambien to help me sleep and keep up my strength for labor. That was the best sleep I’ve had, even with the few bathroom trips. Today at my regular doctor’s appointment, I was hooked up to the NST machine again to monitor Lucy after all the contractions I’ve been having. She looked great, which was good to know. Joe had joked with the midwife yesterday about inducing me, and I guess the midwife thought he was serious because she told the doctor, who had a talk with me about it today. She said she will induce next Wednesday if we want to, but we really don’t (hence the *joke*!). I told Joe I might think differently if we have more stretches like the last few days, but as of right now we don’t want to do anything. However, she said she won’t let me go past 40 weeks, so we will have a baby in two weeks no matter what. I’m hoping she comes this weekend, though, since Joe’s grandma is coming into town. I think that would be really neat.