my macbook takes forever to upload pictures but they never appear

I have tried for days to upload my pictures to the cloud. It seems to be doing something, but at the end of letting it go all night, nothing seems to have happened. I must be doing something wrong but what? In system preferences, I choose iCloud and select photos, then select iCloud photo library in the options. In photos at othe bottom of the screen it says uploading 3750 photos, but after letting it run all night... Nothing changes. I'm sure it must be me, but I don't know where to start. I'm thinking of just going back to not using the cloud.