The False Alarm

On Sunday, May 6 I noticed that my Braxton Hicks contractions seemed different. They felt similar to my-time-of-the-month cramps, which I knew as a sign to mean "baby is coming soon." All day I breathed through them and then around 8pm I started timing them. They seemed pretty close to me. So after talking to my midwife, she had me take a warm bath for a half hour and then just relax for another half hour to see if they changed. Well I did what she said but even as they spaced out a bit more they still seemed awfully close. I called my midwife back and we through our all ready packed hospital bag in the car and drove the 20 minutes to North Valley Hospital (for the third time) to get checked out.
Just as I made the turn onto the road to the hospital parking lot I got pulled over by Whitefish City Police... because I had a headlight that was out. I was not happy and I have no idea how I didn't rip that cop a new one for pulling me over when I thought I was in labor. Okay, so I shouldn't have been driving anyway, but my husband doesn't have his license to drive currently. And no, I did not get a ticket.
So we got checked in and hooked up to the monitors. As the night progressed the contractions started to space out more. They were busy that night, there was a "supermoon" Saturday night and there's something about babies being born on or near a full moon and this one was the biggest one of the year. The first nurse attempted to check my cervix but she had short fingers: I thought she was reaching for my brains or something. So since they were busy they called in another nurse who had checked my cervix the very first time I made a hospital visit. I don't remember her name but I remember her as the "buff German lady." She was able to get it checked but, sadly, I was still only 1-2cm dilated. So I was sent home with a prescription of Ambien (for sleeping) and a really powerful pain killer. Well most mom's I've talked to that have taken Ambien while pregnant ended up hallucinating so I went straight for the pain killer. Which really helped for me to get to sleep. David and I were both bummed that baby wasn't coming that night.