The Final Countdown

I have 7 weeks left to this pregnancy...where did all the time go? Of course, at the same time I am asking myself how I can possibly hold out another month and a half, it is a wonderful conundrum.
I took my first futile trip to labor and delivery yesterday afternoon. I have at least one of these visits with every single pregnancy. I worked an eight hour shift at the hospital on Sunday evening, and arrived home around 12:30 a.m. I was feeling vaguely uncomfortable, but that is kind of normal at this point...comfortable just plain ceases to exist! I finally laid down to sleep at around 1:30 a.m. and immediately started experiencing contractions..I didn't pay too much attention to them..I figured they would go away eventually and I would be able to fall asleep. They didn't go away, and I didn't get any sleep. I even had a couple of incidences where I felt like I needed to push...which freaked me out.
I got out of bed in the morning feeling absolutely miserable and extremely irritable, and STILL contracting! It didn't matter what I did, these things would not get lost! I showered, ate breakfast, and fed the 3 year old. I then went upstairs and informed Rob that I thought there might be a small problem. He volunteered to come with me to help with my puppet show - I think I accepted with poor grace...something to the effect of "If you want to.." We proceeded to the show, he carried everything in and did most of the set up, helped me with the entre act, and even sat behind the stage and handed me puppets during the show. I managed to get through all of it without any major trouble, we cleaned up and left. As we were right down the street from the hospital I am delivering at, we went straight there.
They hooked me up to all the monitors, asked me the standard zillion questions, and did a bunch of tests. They even stuck an IV in my hand and dropped in a bag of saline for good measure. They found my contractions to be mild ones, but at the rate of about 3 to 5 minutes apart. It was kind of a weird pattern....I would have a cluster of about 10 to 15 with that time spacing increment, then nothing for about 10 to 20 minutes, then they would start over again. All the tests came back negative, and they checked the 'baby door' and found it shut nice and tight, they checked it again before they let me go, and again found no change. My midwife was a bit puzzled by everything, as was I. I absolutely hate it when things go haywire with no reason as to why! My midwife wanted to give me a shot of morphine so I could go home and sleep, but I really didn't want to be that far gone, so she compromised and sent me home with a prescription of hydrocodone and orders to take it easy.
I still had contractions last night, but none with any regularity or pattern to them, thank goodness! I was scheduled to work another 8 hour shift last night, but decided I had better take my caregiver's advice, so I called in sick, took a pill, and went to bed!
I slept quite well last night, woke up this morning, and went to do another puppet show.

All quite on the western front....for now!