What's a trip to Virginia...

...without a trip to the doctor? In the past few visits, I've gone to the doctor for some near bronchitis and a lyme disease scare (diagnosis: eczema of the belly button. Who knew!?). Last night I said to my mom that I had just about made it through a visit without a trip to the doctor. Within the hour, I was eating my words as my dad drove us to the emergency room at Fair Oaks hospital.

In a nutshell, all is well with me and baby - just a thing that could happen with pregnancy, but being this is my first (so no previous experience to go on) and I was not near my regular OB, we felt a trip to the ER was the best thing to do. Much like when your dog limps in the morning but walks fine at the vet's in the afternoon ("He *was* limping really bad this morning"), what I was worried about didn't happen again.

My mom thinks that I'm addicted to ultrasounds (earlier in the day we were talking about people being addicted to getting tattoos), so this was a way to get one in. After arriving at the ER (where I was expecting to wait for three hours before being seen), I was hurried up to the Labor and Delivery area where I was admitted and attached to the fetal and contraction monitor. Fetal heartbeat was great; no contractions on my end. Both good news. The doctor ordered an ultrasound to measure both the amount of amniotic fluid around the baby and the thickness of my cervix. After a nice long ultrasound (where the technician had a difficult time gathering measurements of the baby due to her uncooperativeness - there was no nice baby profile shot this time), all was pronounced excellent and we were discharged. So, at the end we did spend about 3 hours at the ER, but not sitting in the waiting room. Whew!

Baby's moving around a lot this morning, so that's comforting, both to me and to Joe, who was stuck in Ohio and waiting for update phone calls all night.

Next trip to Virginia, I think I'll opt for just a small paper cut or a minor bruise. Nothing that requires a trip to a doctor, thanks.