Early labor

So the last few days have been interesting. After my last appointment in IA City on Friday afternoon, the doctor checked my cervix, and owie! She did something...pressed a little too hard or something...which I think caused my labor to begin. As soon as my appointment was over I started feeling light contractions. We stopped at Jay and Molly's house in Cedar Rapids on the way home and the whole time, I felt contractions. They were very mild but strong enough to notice. They just haven't stopped over the course of the last 48 hours. Late Friday evening before I went to bed I started having bloody show. We went to bed that night and I slept mostly through the night, waking up a lot from the strength of a contraction here and there. Not a very restful night. The next morning more bloody show appeared and that is when the contractions started to speed up. We started timing them, and they were consistently coming every 6-8 minutes, lasting 45-60 seconds, and their strength was enough to make me stop and concentrate. They stayed consistently at that rate the entire day. I went out for lots of walks, but they stayed the same. I took a short nap, they slowed down to about every 10 minutes. Every time I would stand up, they would pick up again to the same 6-8 minute rate and if I laid down to rest, they would slow down to every 10-12 minutes apart. Everything I've read still indicates that I'm still in "early labor" which means I'm not in the "active phase" yet. In the active phase of labor, contractions should not slow down when I lay down. This could last days. Its been a long two days of not sleeping very well at night, and even while typing this blog, I've had to stop and concentrate through a couple contractions. I just don't know if at this point, I want them to speed up and get through active labor, or slow down enough so I can get a good night's sleep. My mom came to our house last night around the kids' bed time and has been entertaining them all day today (Sunday), it has been wonderful. I'm trying to resume normal activity and go about my daily activities, I just have to pause and wait for a contraction every 10 minutes or so.