Apparently Will is in a hurry. He's definitely made up his mind as to when he wants to see the great big world. On Monday morning at 2:30 I started having contractions. They continued until about 4 when Steve got up to go to work. I told him what was going on and he asked if I needed him to take me to the doctors or what. I told him the contractions really weren't bad and I was fine to get myself down the mountain. So I sent him off to work-land. They stopped on their own at that point, so I went back to sleep. By the time I woke up at 7:30, they were back. I kept having them thru the morning, although they were really mild and not close together. I had a doctors appointment that morning, so I figured I'd keep that and assume that she'd send me to the hospital. Sure enough, the nurse practitioner was pretty concerned and sent me over to the hospital with a good list of stuff for them to do. I called Steve and told him he should come on down and I went to Tami and Ira's to wait for him. It didn't take all that long, since he'd kind of been anticipating the call. By this point my contractions were about 4-5 minutes apart, 45 seconds long consistently. They took my name and info at the labor and delivery unit (I'd pre-registered so they already had all my background info) and said, okay, it'll be a few minutes. I already had to pee at this point, but I knew the doctor had ordered a urine analysis, so I didn't want to go and not be able to pee later. Of course, "a few minutes" was about 90, and I thought I was gonna pee my pants by the end. I'd kind of been expecting that, but I guess I was being optimistic. So finally I got to pee in a cup and lay down on a bed. As any woman having contractions knows, having a full bladder actually makes the contractions worse. So I'd been having a not very good time in the waiting room. They hooked me up to a fetal monitor and did a non stress test on Will. Having a urinary tract infection can cause contractions as well, which is why they wanted to do the urine analysis on me. No UTI, no problems of any kind. The NST (non stress test for you lay people) said Will was completely fine and nothing was bothering him. The monitor showed my contractions, and it also showed all the other monitors of the rest of the labor and delivery unit. Amazingly, my contractions were the most organized and consistent of all the women there except for the one who gave birth while we were there. Several of these other women were in labor as well, but I was still showing 'em up. Go me! :D Except that wasn't really what we wanted to happen. They gave me a shot of terbutaline to stop the contractions, and it worked like magic. Within about thirty seconds I stopped having them, and didn't have anymore. They kept me on the monitor for another hour to make sure it had worked, then sent me home on bedrest. Steve and I drove back to Julian since we weren't ready to stay down the mountain yet (no clothes, dogs still at home, etc.). I made sure that Steve packed a bag for us with some essentials that night just in case we did need to head down the mountain again in a hurry. I just had the gut feeling that that would be the case. Sure enough, 4:45 the next morning I started having contractions again. So we all got up and headed down to Oceanside. Ira wasn't all that surprised when I called at 6:00 to say we were on our way with the pups. By the time we got there, the contractions had pretty much stopped, so we hung out there for awhile. They came and went most of the morning, not really setting up a pattern. About noon Steve decided he'd head back to Julian to take care of a few things outside in preparation for the storm that was coming later that day. Of course, just because he left, things started happening. I started having regular contractions and started bleeding a little bit. So Tami and Ira and I went to the hospital again, and I called Steve to say turn around, even though you're only five minutes from home. Poor guy. Three hours of driving for nothing. They admitted me into the triage room much faster this time, thankfully. They put me on the monitors again and gave me another shot of terbutaline and checked my cervix. The whole nine yards. I wasn't dilated more than a dimple, so less than 1 cm. About 20 minutes after the shot, I started having contractions again so they gave me a second one. Yipee. Terbutaline contains adrenaline, so it made me shake like a leaf in the wind. Hence the "yipee".  Then they called in a prescription for me for the pill form of said shake inducing drug so I wouldn't have to keep coming back to the hospital and told me that if I came back to the hospital within the next two weeks with the same problem, they'd admit me to the hospital and make me finish my bedrest there. Really not what I wanted to do, so Steve and I decided we'd be super diligent about my bedrest. So I only get up to go to the bathroom and to walk between the bed and the couch. That's it. I'm the queen right now, being fed all my meals while reclining on the couch and having all my whims catered to. He he. It would be a lot more fun if I wasn't such an active individual. It's much more of a punishment to me. But it's only for two weeks. I can manage it for two weeks. It's not really that big of a deal when you're talking about the health of my son. In two weeks I'll be 36 weeks, and by that point they're going to just let me have him if I go into labor. So it's very likely that he'll be here before Christmas, considering his haste the last several days. So we now have a two week window to make sure we're as ready as we can be for his grand arrival. Actually, Steve has two weeks to finish everything. Not much I can do. He's on family friendly sick leave for the next two weeks so he can take care of me, which is nice. Then he'll probably be a father within a few days and will have some more time off. So he probably won't have to work Christmas. Cool. And Will will get to meet my mom, dad, sister, and brother-in-law when they're here for Christmas.

   So lots of excitment here within the Vanderburg household! Tune in next time for another fantastic adventure.