ER Trip

Yesterday I had a midwife appointment and so I was a bit sore from them checking me and seeing how my progress was. I was a 2 and 75% effaced according to the midwife I saw yesterday. Usually I have some cramping and pain afterward and that is normal. However, yesterday about 5:30 I was in major pain. My lower back hurt so bad that I could hardly stand it. I woke my husband up from his nap and told him I needed him to rub my back for me because I could barely walk from the pain. Then about 15 minutes later I noticed I was having the back pain with contractions. I started timing them and they were five minutes apart. After about half an hour of that they jumped to being just 2 minutes apart and quite painful. So I texted my sister and told her what was happening and that Ralph wanted us to go into the hospital. I thought this was going to be it because this was different from the braxton hicks contractions that I had usually felt.

Well my sister lives a good 30 minutes away and the hospital is another 30 minutes from our house so it took us about another hour to get there. When we got there I told the receptionist that I thought I was in labor and she checked us in. A nurse came and got us and then they hooked me up to the monitors to measure my contractions. The nurse was quite optimistic after watching the screen for a few minutes because they were really big, really consistent contractions. By this time she is done with my vitals and has to check me. I was still at a 2 and 75% effaced. She then left for about an hour and I had to sit there and just wait while my sister and husband both stared at the screen and said can you feel that one? I couldn't really feel them at that point. Well after an hour she checked me again and I had made progress! I had gone from a 2 to a 3 and was a bit more effaced. I was excited then because I was ready to just go into labor. Well she said that before she could admit me I had to have a bit more progress so she left me for an hour more. When she came back...nothing. No progress. I was still a 3. So I was a bit deflated then. She came back 30 minutes later and I asked her if I could go walk for a bit. It must have been the prego ladies walking hour because the hall was littered with couples just walking around whereas before there was nobody. After an hour of walking (some of which was horrid because I kept having spasm attacks in my legs) I went back to the room. They checked me and...nothing. No progress. I was so sure there would be progress too because I had felt so much pressure as I walked. Well then they needed to monitor the baby because every time I had a contraction the baby's heart would elevate a lot and that concerned them. So back on the monitors I went. Only they were having troubles monitoring the baby because the baby didn't like the monitors and would move away from them or constantly kick/punch them. So after another hour of trying to get at least a 20 minute read on the baby they had achieved that. The midwife came in at this point and said that I'm most likely not in full labor yet and that I should go home. She prescribed a benadryl like tablet to me so I could "rest" and hopefully the contractions would stop. The let me go and I was so angry because I just wanted to have this baby. Everyone else was angry too because it was 1:45AM by this point and they had work or school to go to (not angry at me but angry that nothing was happening and that they had lost so much sleep waiting for nothing).

Well, the sleeping pills worked and I went out like a light and I hate sleeping pills because I never get good sleep with them and I hate anything that forces you to sleep. I am now really groggy and tired and will probably just go back to sleep, even though I've been sleeping all day. I have no energy and I really hope we don't have a repeat of last night tonight. Next time I'm not going in until my water has broken or I'm in unbearable pain. I just really thought it was the real thing because it was so much different from anything I had experienced up to that point. I guess I was wrong.