Father's Day... kind of long.

Sorry I didn't post this earlier like I said I would... not that any of you were perched on the end of your seat biting your nails and wondering aloud, "What happened on Father's Day??". Although that would be pretty funny.
Anyway, Father's Day was pretty good. I made Jared waffles for breakfast (his meetings were canceled and he canceled the other meetings he was in charge of). Too bad I didn't get any pictures... oh well. Imagine golden, moist, warm waffles with lightly browned edges topped with strawberries and whipped cream. Okay. Anyway, so we had waffles and some melon for breakfast, then we went to church. Church was... good. We think. Sacrament meeting had some great speakers, but we didn't get to hear everything they said. Unfortunately, I started having contractions (again...) right before church at about 4 to 7 minutes apart. (Just so you know ahead of time - no, the baby hasn't been born yet) Probably didn't help that we were sitting in metal chairs (we were late and had to sit in the overflow). I felt bad, though, that Jared had to be the one to keep taking Nathan out and sitting with him in the foyer while he squirmed and had several small tantrums. Oh... to answer a question Marlyse asked once, the contractions didn't scare me very much. I mean, I was nervous, but I was mostly thinking about the whole NICU situation rather than the actual labor. Probably because for this pregnancy I've decided I'm going to either have an epidural or the labor will be really short like last time (although they did have time for an epidural last time... somehow). Either way... at least I'm not (hopefully!) going to be in a long, painful labor.
Anyway, after sacrament meeting they hadn't slowed down (it had been nearly an hour and a half by that point, I think) so I called my doctor. I had to leave a voicemail. That kind of made me worried... I wondered how long it would take for him to get back to me and if he was really the best doctor and if he was going to just let me give birth to a premature infant in the middle of nowhere... I guess I was more than kind of worried. I guess I was kind of hysterical. I mean, as if I didn't know how to get to the hospital. Seriously.
So the doctor called back less than 15 minutes later and asked me the routine questions and I told him what was going on. I felt kind of weird having to tell him everything that he already had in his charts, even though I know doctors have tons of patients and can't possibly remember details from them all. Anyway, so he told me to lie down and drink lots of water and if things still didn't slow down to go into labor and delivery. After that I told Jared what he said and we left class. I just stood in the hall near the nursery while Jared tried to find somebody to give his papers to. All of his counselors had disappeared mysteriously, but eventually he found someone to take care of things in his absence. While he was doing that a friend of mine came out of the class with her baby and asked if I was alright. I had already told her about Tuesday so I just said that it was happening again and we were probably going to go to the hospital. Her two girls were also born early (the second one later than the first). Anyway, Jared came back and we took Nathan out of nursery. He looked kind of dazed and we realized he was exhausted... probably from all the tantrums he'd been having! On the way home we called Adrien and Eric to ask if they could watch Nathan if we ended up going to the hospital.
After we got home I laid down (I hate using any tense of 'lie' or 'lay' because I'm never sure... so just hit me and tell me if I got that wrong) on the couch and drank a couple bottles of water. After half an hour I was getting anxious so I decided we should just go. I'd already packed bags for Nathan and myself because of earlier in the week so that made things easier (I'm always so proud of myself when I'm actually prepared ahead of time... haha =D).
We got to Adrien and Eric's house and set up the pack n' play for Nathan before leaving again. I felt bad that they were so tired (their ward meets very early), but I was also very grateful that they could watch him (they were third in line for backup because they're farther away... but the first two people who offered to watch Nathan were in our ward and we couldn't ask them to leave church!). Thanks guys!
Anyway so then we went over to the hospital. We checked in and all that. The contractions were coming less regularly by then, about 5 to 16 minutes apart. It was like two would come 5 minutes apart, then the next one would be 12 minutes later and then it would sort of repeat itself. Even so, they still weren't very painful. More like menstrual cramps, and not even as bad as the worst ones I've had. Still, they put me on the fetal monitor thing and took the necessary samples for the tests they wanted to do. One of those was for an infection, and one was for a hormone that means you will probably deliver within the next two weeks. It took a few hours for the results to come in, but I ended up being negative for both. They also took a urine sample to check for dehydration and to see if I had a UTI. Anyway, I didn't have a UTI but they did say I was a little bit dehydrated. I wondered how that could be when I'd been downing water like a camel for a long time (weeks?) now. Not because I was actually that thirsty, but because that's what they tell you to do to avoid preterm labor. Whatever. Anyway, they also ended up giving me a couple shots that were meant to slow down the contractions. For a while, they completely stopped (I think). The shots made me really jittery, though. It was kinda weird. I was kind of weird. Anyway, after a few hours they said that everything looked fine and that the baby was healthy so we could go home. We went to pick up Nathan (who loves Adrien and Eric's cats, btw... and loves their toys just as much, apparently) and then we went home! We had Jared's chicken salad for dinner (the dinner I was planning on making I made on Tuesday instead) and just kind of relaxed for the rest of the evening.
Oh yeah, and Jared's gifts for Father's Day were a card, a foot and scalp massage, and not having a baby (too early). The end!