Owen's Birth Story Part One

Well, this little guy kept the surprises in this pregnancy coming! His birth story includes not one, not two, but three trips to the hospital!  It all started the evening of November 15th.  At around 7:30 pm I began to get contractions that were consistently about 4 minutes apart.  They were mild, but continued on for a long time.  At about midnight I called the Kaiser nurses and they suggested I go in to be checked.  Although the contractions were not getting stronger they were happening rhythmically.  Upon arrival I got hooked up to the good ol' contraction counter and heartbeat monitor.  At this point I was 3 cm dilated at -3 station (how far the baby has dropped). After being monitored for some time they disconnected the machine and suggested I walk the halls for a couple hours to see if I could get things progressing.  Well, after sometime there was no change and I was sent home around 4 am.  Round two began on November 18th.  I woke up at about 2 am with contractions.  Again, they were fairly mild (a little more painful than on the 15th).  At around 4 am I decided to call my mom.  Upon her arrival things just kind of stopped.  I decided to go back to sleep and see what would happen.  These contractions continued on and off all day.  At about 5 pm the Kaiser nurses once again suggested I go in to be checked.  At this point I was 3 1/2 cm dilated at a 0 station.  Again, after some monitoring I walked the halls for a couple hours.  When I was checked again there had been no change other than the contractions were a bit stronger.  They kept me a bit longer, but once again things stopped and I was sent home.  At this point I was exhausted.  The nurse let me know I could take Tylenol PM to help me sleep.  We got home around midnight where I snuggled into bed.  Chris was so nice and even slept on the couch in hopes that I would get some better rest!  At around 4 am I woke up to some more intense contractions, but decided to try and sleep some more.  At about 6:30 am I awoke again and this time I felt like I might actually be in labor.  However, because of two previous false alarms I was in no rush to go back to the hospital.  Chris and I finally left the house around 8:30 am, things were definitely more intense, although my contractions were a bit sporadic.  Sometimes they were 4 minutes apart other times 7 minutes apart.  This had been one heck of a confusing labor!