Yesterday: the worst day ever

10:45 - left my quilting group because Jane was getting grouchy. Decided to cash a check at the bank.

10:50 - thought about turning around because I felt really bad cramps

11:20 - got home, felt really bad cramps, and some contractions. Ate some lunch and put Jane down for a nap. Started timing the contractions with an iPhone app.

12:00 - Noticed the contractions getting worse. Took a bath. No change. They were about 10 minutes apart.

12:30 - Called Danny and told him that I really wanted him to come home. He left right away.

Between 1:00 and 3:000 - contractions very steady, five minutes apart, and strong. I called the doctor. They said to come in to their office. I did, after dropping off Jane at a friend's house. The doctor was not there. The nurse I talked to was like, "Oh, I thought you meant you were going to come in right away; the doctor's gone now." Moron. I really love my doctor, but I really hate her nurse. But I noticed that last time, the nurses working for the midwives at the place I went with in Orem were the same: flake-brained bimbos who were fresh out of college and had no experience being pregnant, yet tried to sympathize with you with every breath they took. But I digress. The nurse told me to go to the hospital. I didn't want to because I really didn't want to just be sent home. But she was insistent. Meanwhile, Danny got there. He picked me up, and we drove to the hospital. We sat outside the hospital in the parking lot while I called my doctor (who is in my stake) to confirm that we were doing the right thing. She said that yes, I should go to the hospital so they could monitor me, just to make sure things were okay since I was only 35 weeks and 6 days yesterday. So we went inside.

Between 3:00ish and 6:00ish - a long, crappy waiting period full of filling out papers, sitting half naked on an exam table, getting felt up by a complete stranger, watching my contractions come regularly on the monitor, watching Danny feel completely helpless and feeling bad that there wasn't anything he could do to make things better, getting felt up again, and after three hours of steady, hard contractions, getting told, "You're not progressing," and that I should just go home. Which is what I thought would happen in the first place. So now they will probably charge us a million dollars for something I intuitively knew, I wasted three hours being scared and anxious in a hospital room when I could have just been curled up in bed, but the worst part is that for all their medical know how, there is nothing new that was revealed about how my baby is doing or when he will come; nothing at all that they could tell me that I didn't already know. The only thing they officially told me was, "Hey, yes, you ARE having contractions!" Um, DUH. And the whole business of checking for dilation...it doesn't even mean anything. People walk around at 2's and 3's for days, even weeks, without "progressing".

Between 6:00 and 8:00ish - Danny brought me home, filled a prescription for Ambien (a hypnotic sleeping drug), got me dinner and a milkshake, picked up Jane from our friend's house, gave me the drugs, and tucked me in to bed. It was the worst, and I mean worst, falling asleep experience I have ever had. I was still in pain and awake (oh yeah, did I forget to mention that at this point my contractions were about 2-3 minutes apart, and still very intense?), but the drugs made me groggy and I started to see weird shapes. I tried to fall asleep by myself, but I had to have Danny come sit with me, because it was just to weird and scary. He says I had a hard time recognizing him. I finally fell asleep.

Throughout the night, the contractions continued, but started to lessen. Even though I was on a pretty strong sleeping drug, I still had to get up and pee every few hours. By morning, there weren't any more contractions. My doctor told me I should basically be on "bedrest" today and possibly tomorrow. So Danny stayed home from work to watch Jane and take care of me. What a wonderful husband! I watched movies and ate in bed, and went swimming in the afternoon. There haven't been any big contractions; probably a few small ones. Mostly I feel like I have some mild period cramps. It sucks. You'd think the one advantage of being pregnant is that you don't have to have your period, but what's the advantage if you still feel the pain? I mean, that is the sucky part, combined with PMS. But PMS has nothing on pregnancy hormones HCG and estrogen and progestin. Bleaugh.

The very worst part is this huge conflict I feel in my head: I'm glad that I didn't go into labor yesterday because the baby would have been premature. I mean, it's only a week premature, so it's not a huge, huge deal, but there are advantages to him staying in utero even for a few more days: like his lungs being more developed, and him having more layers of fat to keep him warm. But to be honest, I am sick of being pregnant and I want to see my baby. So there's the conflict: I want him to come right away, but I don't want him to come right away.

Anyway, that's what happened. Do not comment unless you have something nice to say.