Active Labor?

So it seems I am finally in "active labor". We won't know for sure until they do another cervical exam. I would have updated this much sooner, but we were waiting to know what was going on- its been a long day of just waiting around here! I made a correction on the early labor post because apparently I was closer to 1cm dilated and only 25% effaced yesterday. There was some debate between the nurses, but that is where I was when the checked me this morning, and you can't really go backwards so I guess I had really made less progress initially then we had thought. This morning at about 11:00am they gave me some Misoprostol to soften the cervix. They said it could take up to twelve hours to start working, and that most likely they would have to re-dose every four hours. I started having contractions regularly at 2:45pm and they checked me close to 5:00pm and said I had dilated closer to 2cm, and that I was now at 50% effacement and had made a lot of progress in terms of thinning of the cervix. The contractions are now really close together, and very intense. They are lasting about 45-60 seconds each, one to two minutes apart! They have made the decision to hold off on the pitocin because it seems I'm progressing on my own now, which is good news! According to our nurse, the Misoprostol they gave this morning should have worn off completely by about 7:00pm. These contractions REALLY hurt now! I can't imagine how they will be when I get farther along. I don't think I'll be getting much sleep tonight either and we probably won't have a baby now for another six to ten hours! Okay well time to get hooked back up...