False Alarm

11:53pm I wake up Sunday night because I have to go the bathroom. I go and crawl back into bed and lay there for 15 minutes. By 12:07am I am completely uncomfortable with extreme back pain. I decide to hop in the tub and soak for a bit to try and relieve the pain. After 20-30 minutes soaking and playing Brick Breaker I think that I am tired enough that I will just fall asleep no matter the pain I am still feeling. So back to bed I go. While I am lying there with all this back pain I put my hands on my belly and notice its HARD. Not regular pregnancy hard but hard all over. This mixed with the back pain which was shooting forward like a period cramp got me thinking... is this labour? After looking at the clock and thinking that I shouldn't wake Brett up yet because its not happening a lot and he has to get up for work. So I stayed there, breathing away the pain, (by away I mean through, because the pain did not go away) watching the clock to see how much time is between these possible contractions. I tried moving myself into different positions because they say that Braxton Hicks contractions can go away or ease up if you move, this did not happen. So the time between each feeling was not a lot- only 5 minutes. According to all the doctors and classes they say to call the maternity ward and come in when contractions are 5 minutes apart for an hour. It had been happening a while now and thought maybe I should wake Brett up and see if he thinks the same about my belly getting hard. He confirmed that yes my belly was hard and after looking over some papers we thought okay let's call and see what they say.

So I called and the nurse told me the maternity ward was on diversion. Meaning they are so busy that anyone of their patients in labour have to go to another hospital but they can have me come in for an assessment. So we packed up our stuff, just in case. While doing all this my biggest 2 concerns were that I needed to take off my mascara because its not waterproof and if I end up in the shower at the hospital I can not have it running down my face and I want to do my hair. Two things that don't normally concern me. Off to the hospital we go. In the back of my head I am thinking what if they look at me and laugh and say these are not contractions you crazy nut. So we get there and the busy maternity ward seems dead as we walk in. First thing I see are brand new twins being rolled to the nursery-awww so cute! After peeing in a cup I get put in the assessment room and the nice, overly happy for 2am nurse comes in. We listen to the heartbeat and wait for a contraction. I am explaining what I have been feeling and she tells me that yes I am feeling contractions but they don't seem to be getting too intense. She checks me and I am still 1cm dilated but my cervix has softened and has moved forward. She looks at me and says, "you may not think this is a good thing, but I don't want to send you to Burnaby. Go home, try and sleep and hope that things progress around 8am when we should have room for you. I understand sleeping may seem impossible with the pain but we can give you something like Ativan to help you sleep because you could still be days away and you are going to need to rest." I declined the drugs and she explained that if the back pain gets worse I can try regular Tylenol if I am comfortable with that. She told us if things get worse to come back but if possible stay at home until 8am.

Back in the car, headed for home. I am feelings some sadness as I did hope that I could get to meet our little one. Once we got home I crawled into bed and positioned myself with pillows. After laying there for over an hour I must have dozed off. I woke up at 5:38am, went pee, got back in bed and waited... nothing. No more contractions. I still had the back pain but it stayed in my back and I did not get a hard tummy. So what 2 hours of painful contractions and then it just stops? Seriously? Come on now, I was so ready! Well now we just sit around and wait for things to happen. By sit I mean I am going to do groceries and buy beer for tonight's ball game. I guess this baby just knows that if it came out now my dad would miss it. Gotta wait til the 26th!

The adventure continues...