MISERABLE!

We made it to the goal of 36 or 37 weeks and now I am ready to be done being pregnant!  Over the past couple weeks I've had several episodes of crazy intense painful contractions every 3-4 minutes that last for 10 hours or so, and then they all of a sudden slow down to every 5-7 minutes and become pretty mild.  Yesterday was one of those days.  I was having them regularly every 4 minutes all morning long.  I went to the doctor for my normal weekly visit and was dilated 4 cm.  The doctor decided to strip my membranes and said if the contractions pick up within the hour to head over to Labor & Delivery.  About an hour later we were at the hospital.  I was in so much pain and felt like I was having 1 giant contraction that never let up.  They put me on the monitor and sure enough my contractions were about 2 minutes apart and lasting almost the full 2 minutes.  Sometimes I would get a 15 second break in between.  1 hour later I was still in so much pain and contracting like crazy, but my cervix hadn't changed- SO THEY SENT ME HOME!  Seriously, who gets sent home at that point?  I guess it's standard procedure because I'm not 39 weeks yet (actually I'm not even 38 weeks until tomorrow) so they can't break my water, or give me pitocin, or do anything else to help things progress.  They told me to go home, walk a lot, have sex, and come back later, and if I was at a 5, they would admit me, give me an epidural and get things going.  Unfortunately I was in so much pain and so exhausted from the long day and not sleeping a drop the night before, that I was only able to squeeze out a couple little walks before physically and emotionally I just couldn't do it and decided to just go to bed.  Now, it's 6 am, the contractions have completely slowed, and I'm a mess!  I'm thinking at this point my best option is to figure out a way to break my own water.  Then they can't send me home!  Either that or I have to wait 8 more days, until next Friday when I'm officially 39 weeks, and they can give me a little bit of pit or break my water to help labor progress beyond this point.  Any ideas??