Everything Always Happens in the Middle of the Night

We had an eventful night on Saturday night. That evening I started having pretty regular contractions. I decided to start timing them around 9 pm and they were around 6-1/2 to 7 min apart. They weren't very painful, just uncomfortable. Then they started getting closer together and by 11 pm, they were about 4-1/2 - 5 minutes apart - they had gotten a little bit stronger, but still weren't very terribly intense. I kind of just wanted to wait it out and go to sleep and figured if I could sleep, it wasn't too serious. However, Clayton was getting really worried and wanted me to call the doctor - especially because I am only 36 weeks and not considered full term until 37 weeks.

I ended up calling about 11:15 and didn't hear back from the doctor until about 12:30 am, telling me to go to the hospital. We packed up our stuff and took Caleb to Clayton's parents and finally made it to the hospital around 1:30 am. When they first hooked me up to the monitor, my contractions had slowed down and I didn't have one for the first 15 or 20 minutes. I was starting to feel like an idiot and was going to be really irritated if they had stopped after all that, but sure enough, they started up again. I had one big one and then they were 3-4 minutes apart but pretty weak.

The doctor didn't want to check me for progress because they didn't want to cause my uterus to contract even more, so they just gave me a shot of Brethine and then a prescription of Procardia. Both can't really stop labor if my body is ready, but they will slow it down. I have to take the Procardia every 6 hours around the clock. I've never had to set an alarm clock to wake up in the middle of the night to take medicine. Between the insomnia, discomfort, 8 bathroom trips and getting up to take the medicine, my plan of sleeping as much as possible before the baby is born is quickly falling apart.

The medicine has slowed down the contractions but definitely hasn't put a stop to things. I was having some pretty intense cramping last night and today I have a horrible lower backache. Clayton wants me to call the doctor and see if they want me to come in but I'm still kind of in the "wait and see" mode. I think most pregnant women have a general fear of "crying wolf" before labor is actually here and I certainly fall into that category. It's just kind of tricky since I'm not quite full term.

I'll keep you all updated. I'm going to try to convince Caleb to let me take a shower and consider calling the doctor in a little while. :/