It Don't Mean A Thing if You Ain't Got That PAIN!!!

So - kid No. 3. By the time you've given birth twice, surely the third time will fly by and be a cinch. As I'm sitting here I've been having contractions that are regular for the past 28 hours. These contractions have been between 5-8 minutes apart for the past 19 hours. How it is that this kid is not here is beyond me. I am totally baffled as to why they aren't increasing in intensity and dialating me. At around 8:30 last night, after two hours of 5-7 minute apart contractions, we decided to head to the hospital (as the nurse at my Dr's office had told me that I should go to the hospital when the contractions were 5-7 minutes apart for at least an hour). The contractions were tolerable but frequent, so off we went. We got to the hospital and the nurse checked me and I wasn't any more dialated than I had been at my last appointment but I was "80% on my way to 90% efface." I guessed they were going to send me home and she said it was likely since these contractions didn't seem to be dialating me. She went to call my doctor (who was on call that evening)and strapped me up to the monitors before she left. She came back to discharge me and verified that I was having frequent contractions, 7, 3, 6, 5 minutes apart - the only problem is this is not the type of contraction that will get our little boy here. Of course, the nurse said that this type of contraction could last for a few more hours or another day or two - WHAT!!! WHAT!!! SERIOUSLY - MY THIRD CHILD IS GOING TO BE MY LONGEST "LABOR" - I say "LABOR" because until it's active labor (dialated 4 cm with PAINFUL contractions is what I'm waiting for at this point according to the night nurse) it isn't really labor - just pre-labor, which isn't painful but is inconvenient and slightly uncomfortable (as in uncomfortable enough to wake me up several time during the night) on a REGULAR basis. SO - the moral of this story, when it comes to contractions IT DON'T MEAN A THING IF YOU AIN'T GOT THAT PAIN!!! I'm actually hoping for pain at this point - odd, never thought I'd say that. Please say a prayer that this picks up in frequency and intensity so that I don't go crazy (or crazier - depending on who you ask).