Unpredictable is Labor

Well, for those of you that I so enthusiastically texted last night -- we're still not at the hospital! But we are leaving the house in about 10 minutes to go. BTW - if I haven't told everyone, Meridian Park (and all Legacy hospitals, for that matter) are NOT allowing visitors for fear of swine flu. It's ridiculous, but true. Sorry!!!

Here is the story (so far):
I had contractions 3 minutes apart for 2 hours, lasting about 30 seconds each. Then I sat at the computer for a bit and they went down to 4-5 minutes apart. Then we sat down to watch a movie, and they spaced to 7 minutes apart, about 1 minute long. I called the doc, and she said it was better to try to rest than to walk - that the more frequent contractions wouldn't dilate me any more than my body relaxing and contracting when it would. She suggested taking benedryl and trying to sleep. So we did that at 11. By then the contractions had slowed to every 10 minutes, lasting about 1 minute or 1:15 each.

In bed, it was nearly impossible to sleep. Imagine someone punching you in the stomach every 10-15 minutes, then trying to sleep in between. Not so easy. I listened to Wuthering Heights on my iPod - that at least helped me doze between contractions. But basically I was contracting every 10-15 minutes for a minute or so each all night. And the babe was moving a lot, one foot or elbow or knee or something digging into my left side like pushing on a bruise. Finally at 5:45 am, I woke up Alex.

We made coffee cake, went for a walk, and as I walk around, the contractions are now spaced about every 4 minutes, for 60 seconds. They're still not super intense, but getting there. When we get to the hospital, the doc said she'll try stripping the membranes again to get things possibly moving faster/more intense. Ultimately, though, I will get induced with pitosin today if nothing else works (which also means I will most likely get an epidural too). Ah well, such is life - and unpredictable is labor.