Eventful night (and day).

Well I took the caster oil on Wednesday night like I said, ate dinner, then sat down to watch a movie.  About an hour after the caster oil I started having contractions.  These were pretty strong but the thing that got me excited was that they were coming on regular at about 10 min. apart.  I managed to make it through the movie and then started playing games with my parents.  The contractions did slow down during the game so I didn't think much more about it.  After games we went to bed around 11pm.  I was still having irregular contractions so it took a while to fall asleep.  I kept dreaming that I was having one big contraction that never went away.  I woke up about 1:30am for a usual potty trip and noticed that my dream was infact a reality.  I was having strong contractions that just seemed to be coming one right after the other.  I didn't know if they were real or not so I just laid there seeing if they stopped.  By 2:30 I realized that they weren't stopping nor were they getting any farther apart, they were still coming on one right after the other.  I decided that it would be better to be safe and go be checked out at the hospital than to wait too long and have the baby at home or worse, in the car on the way to the hospital.  It was snowing and pretty icy on the roads so it took a little longer to get to the hospital than usual.  Normally that would be okay but in the car the contractions got stronger and longer.  I was sure that it wouldn't be long after arriving at the hospital that we would have baby.  I was taken to an L&D room and hooked up to the monitors.  Acording to the monitors the contractions were 2-5 min. appart and they were deffinately getting stronger.  The nurse checked to see what dialation I was at and it was a 2+.  A little more than my doctor appointment earlier so I was excited to see more progress.  I was given an hour and checked again.  No change this time so I was given another hour.  No change again so my doctor was called.  He said to wait two more hours and check again.  After the last wait it was now 7am and again there was no change.  The doctor said that I was most likely in early labor so he wanted me to go home and rest.  He said to come back at 1pm and if there was still no progress he would have the nurse induce labor to help it along.  I couldn't believe they were sending me home but I at least knew that it was only a matter of hours now before we would have baby.

I went home and rested easily since I had not gotten much sleep that night.  By the time I woke up though the contractions had stopped completely!  I couldn't figure out why but it didn't matter because I was told to come back and be induced.  When I got back I was checked again and was now a 3 and 60% efaced.  The contractions had come back but now they were about 12 min. apart.  I was back to the waiting game again.  After a few checks with no new progress the nurse decided that I wasn't in early labor but was really just having false labor so she called the doctor and convinced him that there was no need to induce the baby.  They sent me home again and told me to come back when I was really in labor.  Needless to say that didn't make me very happy. 

I was so close and now we were back to square one.  Not wanting to give up completely we went straight to Wal-Mart to walk around hoping to get things started again.  No such luck, not even one little contraction.  I went home and took another dose of caster oil since it had worked so well the night before but this time there was nothing.  I guess I truly was in false labor.  It was a hard night as I watched the clock tick closer and closer to midnight on New Year's Eve knowing how close we were to having the baby exactly when I was hoping to, but realizing that it wasn't going to happen now.  It's still very emotional for me...but at least I know that the baby is doing well and that is what is most important.  I don't want to do anything that would hurt the baby.