Welcome to labor, now go away

From 9am yesterday, it was contraction after contraction. This is it, we thought! Nothing too strong, and nothing too regular, but anything from 2 to 25 minutes apart, and from 10 to 40 seconds in duration. We packed our bags, made sure to eat plain, soft foods and waited for things to ramp up.

As we approached 10pm, it was clear that nothing dramatic would happen anytime soon. Following our doula's advice, we decided to try to slow things down a little so that we could get a good night's sleep. Hopefully things would get more intense in the morning. A small glass of dark beer and an early night seemed like a good idea.

What happened instead is that the moment K's head hit the pillow, the contractions stopped, and here we are in the middle of the next day waiting for them to start up again.

This is seriously frustrating. For two weeks we've been told that "it could happen at any moment". And then when it does, it actually doesn't.