Preterm labor- round 1

Well. Got inducted into the "Welcome to Rex Hospital" club last night. It was scary.
I had been laying on the sofa watching TV, waiting for Randy to come home. I decided to go get the mail, and I made it halfway to the mailbox when I was hit with horrible pain in my left lower back. I though, hmm, maybe I got up wrong or something. I made it to the box and back in, and at that point I thought someone was trying to rip my kidney out through my skin- it HURT. I thought, great, my lovely kidney stone is acting up. So I went to the bathroom to see if I had blood in my pee, but no. So I hobbled to the couch and laid down, but that didn't offer a whole lot of relief. I laid there for a bit and finally managed to reach my phone on the coffee table to call Randy, who I told to please come home N.O.W. and I was almost in tears. I called the answering service of the Dr. and Randy got home before the Dr. called me back. Of course, I never got my Rx filled, so I had Randy on a narcotics hunt through the house (all he found was some pills from my LAST kidney stone issue that had expired last year). At this point I was in less pain as long as I was still. The Dr. called and after I explained everything she asked me how my uterus felt, and it was tender to the touch, so she sent me to L&D at the hospital and said she wanted me checked out and she'd see me there. I started drinking water in case it was my kidney stone.
On the way to the hospital, I realized that my back pain was coming and going- to the tune of every 7-8 minutes, and my left side in the front was now hurting. So we get to the hospital and they checked me in pretty quickly, and put me in a gown and bed in triage. They hooked me up to a monitor, made me pee in the cup, put in an IV and drew blood. At this point, I was pretty much a nervous wreck to the possibility that this was IT and I could be meeting my new daughter any time now. Randy was very good to me- poor guy, I know he was as freaked out as I was.
The monitor was showing that I was having contractions every 8 minutes or so, and at first they correlated to my back/side pain, but as I got fluids into me the pain eased off and the contractions were just uncomfortable. Randy had fun watching the monitor for when I would have one, and watching Gracie's heartbeat- he could tell when she was awake and moving around versus sound asleep. The nurse checked my cervix (boy was THAT fun) and I wasn't dilated. She said Dr. Homeister was on her way to check on several patients, but she had noticed my contractions and told the Dr. and they wanted them to stop, so she gave me a shot of Terbutaline, which made me very jittery, but seemed to work almost immediately to stop the contractions.
I finally saw Dr. Homeister (we'd been there for a couple hours- poor Randy was starving, but refused to get something to eat!) and at that point I was just sore in my back. I'd gotten a liter of fluids and my cervix hadn't dilated- but she said it was soft. She thinks I was just dehydrated, which put the kidney stone in action, which caused the contractions to start. So I got to come home with instructions to drink a lot and call if I started having contractions again. I was worn out at this point. Randy and I stopped and got dinner (I won't tell you where, but there weren't many places open at 11:00 at night!) and today I have a long list of stuff to do, after our little reality check last night. BTW, I am feeling better after a good sleep, I still feel some occasional contractions, but not much pain- nothing like that "kidney trying to escape" pain, anyway.
So today: the carseat goes in the car. My bag for the hospital gets packed. Shelby's bag gets packed for boarding (in case we need to board her). Our co-sleeper, (which Randy's folks very generously bought for us this weekend!!) is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow- that's about the last thing we really NEEDED in case we come home with an infant any day now. The nursery isn't done, but it can wait.
Hopefully I won't be making another appearance at Rex until a lot closer to my due date. At least I know what to expect now, huh?