false labor

well it happened to me, every woman's nightmare, going to the hospital thinking you are in labor and then being sent home. Really it is just the perfect "almost ending" for a really piss you off kind of pregnancy (excuse the language but I am soooo freakin grumpy). Well I have been having tons of contraction all week, at my appointment on Tues I was dilated to an almost three and 80% effaced, but I really knew that all the contractions weren't real. However, at about 2 o'clock this afternoon I started to just feel not good, kind of sick but just not right and then boom contractions every three minutes, you could have set your clock by it. So after about 40 min I think to myself these aren't hurting terribly bad, but I just don't think you can ignore contractions three min apart, plus I was having lots of pressure down "there". So I call my doc and give the nurse all the details, so she says I better go in to the hospital. So I call my husband and he heads home, it was of course right the time that I needed to get my kids from school but my mother in law said she could grab them on her way over so all I needed to do was wait for everyone and try to get my three year old to stop screaming at me. So my husband gets home and we sit and wait for my mother in law, and wait some more. My husband is getting anxious cause he has the number one fear of all husbands of pregnant women, not that the baby will have problems, or that his wife is going to be hurt (all though those are huge fears of all husbands), but the fear that he will have to deliver the baby himself. I tried to tell him to calm down cause all though my contractions were still coming 3 min apart they weren't hurting nearly bad enough to get a baby out. I just kept saying "hon, I am not yelling, screaming, crying, or moaning we have a while to go before she comes out". Besides I told him I knew they would take a while to get home cause as I have posted about in the past our eight year old is notoriously slow. To which he said "if I have to deliver this baby cause she is slow then she is so off my list of favorite kids". So anyway they eventually get there and off the kids go happily to Grandma's house and off we go anxiously to the hospital. Now at this point my husband asks if I am nervous and I honestly reply that I am not, cause I really don't know if this is real labor. Now you would think that by my fourth kid I would know when I am in labor, but you see previous to today I have been one of those really lucky women whose water has broken before I went into labor. When your water breaks you just know it is going to happen it is great, they can't send you home. All though with my first they did try to send me home. You see my water broke as I was walking to the hospital with a big gush, really it was just like the movies. It felt like I had just broken a water balloon between my legs. So we went to the hospital and the nurse that checks you in just didn't believe that my water had broken cause apparently right after it did my daughter jammed her big head into the birth canal so that no more water leaked out. It took me quited a while to convince the nurse that yes my water did break and no I didn't just pee my pants. Really she checked me with an ultrasound machine and didn't believe me then had to use some of that ph paper which I guess was the last one in the box and old so didn't work but I refused to go home so she opens a new box and checks again and said "oh ya your water did break", stupid nurse. So anyway having your water break on its own is nice and because it has happened before I just don't know what it is like to go into labor the good old fashioned contraction way. So we get to the hospital, get all checked in and get wheeled up to the maternity floor and into the room where they check you to see if you are really in labor or if you are so desperate to get that baby out that you are faking it hoping you can trick them into inducing you. Then we just sit there and wait for about half an hour. I really didn't mind waiting cause my contractions weren't hurting to bad and I don't know anyone who is super excited about putting on one of those lovely hospital gowns. So about a half hour later the nurse comes in and her first question is "do you feel like you need to push" which seems like the dumbest question in the world to me. I can guarantee if I had been needing to push for that last half hour I so would not have been sitting quietly in the intake room. Then it made me wonder if there are women out there who are so tough that they can sit there quietly while they dilate all the way to ten waiting patiently for someone to find the time to come see them, if there are women like that I don't want to hear about it! So I say no, change into my stylish gown and get hooked up to the monitor. At this point what do you think happened, if you guessed that my contractions went cold turkey on me you are right. They pretty much stopped. I went from every three min to two in twenty min. I don't think I have ever been more angry at my uterus, and let me tell you have spent a lot of time angry at my uterus lately. So after twenty min she tells me to get up to walk around for an hour. So we walk and immediately I have a big old contraction then they keep coming every three min again, and better yet they start to hurt, not super painful but enough to remind me why women love epidurals. Then I meet my doctor, you see when you "go into labor" on memorial day weekend the chances of having your actual doctor deliver you are very small, you are probably going to get the on call doctor. Which my docs office has started to share their call rotation with another office so not only do I not get my doc, but I get a doc I have never even laid eyes on. However, I didn't really care cause he said two wonderful things to me, one that he doesn't care when I get an epidural, and two that if I can just get to four centimeters he would do whatever was needed to get things moving along. So I immediately fell in love with him and wondered how I had lived my life so far without him. My contractions were coming pretty regular and getting harder so I thought no prob, I can get to a four. So after an hour of walking and walking I was getting tired and it was time to be checked again, so what do you suppose happens the min they put the monitors on, that is right nothing happened, all of a sudden my contractions are 7 min apart and don't hurt and while I was now totally effaced I was still only at a three. I was tired and so mad and felt like a stupid idiot for coming into the hospital with false labor. The nurse was really nice and kept telling me that it could be pre labor and that I would be back the next day but really there is nothing you can say to a woman in this situation. My poor husband was just really quiet and looked kind of afraid of me at this point. As we were walking out of the hospital I had my hardest contraction yet. I just thought "how come I am having pain and walking away from the hospital". So I came home and got into bed at 8 and now I am up at midnight venting my heart out in a blog. Oh and another annoying part of all this was that we missed a church activity tonight that I was of course in charge of and now I am going to have to go to church on Sunday and deal with all the "I thought you had your baby", "what are you doing here", "that is a good way to get out of your church responsibility" and so on. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I am so annoyed! I have really always felt so bad for all those women out there who deal with the get sent home from the hospital thing, and now that I have joined your ranks I feel really bad for myself!