After I went to bed, I was awakened at 12:30am with contractions.  My 20mo son wasn't sleeping very soundly, so I was also getting up and giving his pacifier back to him.  (He is cutting four teeth.)

I dozed in and out with the contractions until a little after 2am, when I had a really strong one.  Uh-oh, I thought.  Go figure…dh is 2 hours away, and I will have to arrange childcare for the kids AND find someone to drive me in.  I figured I would wait it out for a while, and see how things went.  20 minutes later, after a couple of light contractions, I had another very strong one.  Then they started coming every 6-8 minutes.  I waited until about 3:30am, and was laying there praying about it, having more contractions, asking God to let me know what to do.  As soon as I requested His guidance, I had back-to-back hard contractions.  OK!  I'm listening!

I called my midwife (Judy), and she agreed it would be a good thing for me to come in.  I knew my MIL would be happy to come over to stay with the kids, but she had to go to work at 7:30am, so I had to arrange for someone come take over for her.  I called the person I had lined up as a backup, but she had forgotten to take the phone upstairs with her, so after calling her number 4x's, I called another friend.  Of course while I was on the phone with the second person, the first one called me.  I really hate making decisions during labor!  I finally decided to have one gal come over to babysit in the morning, and the other one drive me in.  Spread out the work, right?

Anyway, to make a long story a little shorter, we made it to the birthing center, and the contractions were still about 6-8 minutes apart.  Dh had beaten me there, as I suspected he would, since he was actually closer than I was.  Judy checked me and I was dialated to 3.5-4cm, but the problem was that he had his hand on the top of his head!  She suspected that he was stimulating things and causing the contractions!  She got his hand to move (UGH!), but only after he tried to grab her fingers and she finally had to pinch his fingers to get him to pull them back!  Silly baby!

She decided I should try to get some rest, as things weren't really close yet, so dh and I laid down and tried to sleep.  We woke up at 9:30am!  I was “dead-in-the-water!”  No contractions….

Judy was really busy with appointments at the clinic, so we scheduled an appointment for 11:30am, and went out to breakfast.  I had two contractions during breakfast, then we headed back to the clinic.  Judy checked me and I was a little more dialated, and more effaced, but not much progress.  She stretched me a little, and we decided to go run some errands for the house project.

After several hours of running around, with hardly any contractions, we decided to head home.  My mom had heard we had come in, so she had made us dinner.  We went by her house, picked up dinner, and headed to the center to pick up our things.  Judy checked me again, and I had effaced more, had lost some of my mucos plug, and was having more contractions, but I still just wanted to head home.  I was SO tired.

I continued to have contractions, but they started stretching out, and by last night, they had stopped.  I am still losing more mucos plug (how much do you lose, anyway?  I don't remember losing mine prior to labor before.), and I know I am dialated somewhere between 4-5cm, but other than that, no labor.  I was able to sleep pretty well last night, but still feel pretty tired.

Dh is begging me to have this baby so he can take vacation time.    I'm trying to accomodate, but this little man just isn't cooperating.  Maybe we will go on another walk tonight.  Any other ideas?