What to Expect When You Are....WHAT?!?!?

Either I don't remember what it was like in those final weeks when I was pregnant with Eli, or they were just...uneventful.   I do remember that...
1) I was on summer vacation from teaching
2)We were in the thick of rehabbing our house (I don't even think we had carpet in his room until 3 weeks before due date...)
3) I myself was thick : )   Seriously, my feet looked like I had stacked one on top of the other...(mom do you still have that picture, I want a copy...now that it's over)
4) Labor just kinda happened on the night of July 20th, 3 days before my due date.
5) Eli was born 19 hours later : )   (I'll leave out all the other details I DO remember)

This pregnancy has been WAY different already.   Not only is it a girl : ) , but I was sick,  I have been chasing around a 2 year old, she NEVER shows us her face even though we get an ulatrasound at every appointment, and....I am already contracting. 

Last Saturday (at that point I was 5 weeks from due date) I contracted for 2 hours straight.  I seriously thought we were going to go to the hospital that night.   Before I called in the recruits to watch Eli, looked like an idiot in front of my Dr., ect. I pulled out my handy dandy "What to Expect When you are Expecting" book.     This typically isn't my favorite pregnancy book but my other ones were in Eli's room while he was napping.    So I looked up "pre term labor".   Here is what it said, "

"Real labor has not begun if...
*the uterus relaxes and contractions ease if you have an alcoholic drink. "     p. 235

WHAT?   Awesome...it then said,

"It is probably real if the contractions intensify, rather than ease up, with activity and aren't relieved by a change in position or by an alcoholic drink."   p. 235

Before I cracked open my six pack of beer, I decided I better check the date this book was published...sure enough 1984.    I seem to recall that rather than buying this book new when I was pregnant with Eli I snagged a copy for 25 cents at Goodwill : )   (that would also explain the weird highlighting in places I wouldn't really want to "highlight")  

What is the current remedy for finding out if contractions are the real deal?   WATER.   Yep, they really have toned down the advice.  So now 4 weeks out with contractions almost nightly, I am drinking lots of....water : )      (NOTE: even the picture of the girl on the "COMPLETELY NEW AND REVISED EDITION" looks so sassy and cute...just like me!)