What is it about basketball nights?

J plays basketball on Thursday nights in a league. He has missed several weeks because my contractions always seem to pick up frequency (and sometimes intensity) on Thursdays and I worry that it might escalate and finally be time to head to the hospital. He left at just after 8 tonight for a game that starts at 9:30. I told him to go because I'd only had one noticeable contraction this evening. I'm wondering if I'll live to regret that decision.

In the age of cell phones, one might wonder why I couldn't just call him if I thought it was time to go. Well, see, it goes back to our little man, Z. J had hoop the night I was admitted to the hospital with Z. I had placed a call to the on-call OB that evening and she gave me instructions that required waiting an hour before making a decision. The call was at 6 p.m., about 10 minutes before J left for hoop. I told him to go, but keep his cell phone handy. I'd call if the wait revealed I had to go into triage.

An hour later (7 p.m.), and I had to go to triage. I called his cell as I drove and got his voice mail. I left him a message that I was headed to the hospital and could he please call me. I get to triage and the nurse is asking me her questions as she hooks me up to the monitors:
Nurse: Are you contracting?
Me: No
Nurse: Is the baby moving?
Me: Yes, he's turning around right now.
Nurse: No, you're having a contraction right now.
Me: ::freaking out::

I call J again. Get voicemail again and leave a message that he needs to pick up his phone and call me ASAP.

They do the routine checks without saying much to me (and honestly, if they'd told me, I was so ignorant about labor and delivery it wouldn't have meant anything to me anyway). The nurse goes out for 2 minutes and comes back in my little room.

Nurse: You're two centimeters dilated and contracting regularly. We're going to give you this shot to see if it stops. It is going to give you the shakes, you'll have hot flashes, and it will make you really emotional.
Me: Ok, just let me call my husband first.
Nurse: No. ::swabs my arm with alcohol and stabs with with a syringe::

I call J again. Voicemail AGAIN. Hysterical sobbing. I don't even remember what I said I was so freaked out that a shot couldn't wait 2 minutes for me to make a phone call.

At just after 9 p.m., J calls me. He asks if I needed him to pick something up on his way home.
Me: Why are you going home? ::sobbing::

Apparently he just saw that I'd called and not checked his messages. The noise in the gym was enough that even though he left his phone out on a chair at the sideline, he never heard it ring. He had no idea I was even at the hospital. So now, I just don't trust the basketball environment if I'm worried about going into labor.

And tonight, I told him to go, confident that baby girl was staying put. Now, I'm contracting a lot. They still don't hurt enough to really worry me, but they're getting stronger. He probably won't be home until after 11. Either they'll die off yet again, or maybe I'll know better what is going on by the time he gets home. I'm predicting the former, but there is just something about basketball.