Have a nice trip, see you next fall...

Hello, Meg here, with a little update:

Ok, we've learned in the past 24 hours to start the story with this phrase:

"Everything's ok, we just wanted you to know..."

Yesterday I was enjoying my first official day of maternity leave. I did some shopping, puttered around the kitchen, etc. Well I apparently puttered a bit to quickly around the slippery kitchen floor in my socks, because I turned the corner into the wood-floor hallway, slipped, and fell forward. You know how, mid-fall, you always have a very vivid thought? Like, "This is going to hurt!", that kind of thing? I thought, "Thank God I'll fall forward and land on my hands & knees!" Well, sort of. My knees hit and just kept right on slipping backward, and I landed flat as a pancake on my face - and my tummy. OW.

Bob was on his way home. I waited a while to see if I felt the baby moving, to make sure everything was ok. And wouldn't you know it, our over-active, wiggly-jiggly kid was completely still. And to make matters more worrysome, she was all bunched up way up high in my tummy (ribs, whatever, she doesn't care) and wasn't responding to anything that usually gets her moving.

I called the doctor's office, to find out what they wanted me to do - I figured I'd have to do a special kick-count or drink a lot of water or something. Nope. The doctor wanted me to go to the hospital and be monitored. They told me to wait until Bob got home because I shouldn't drive myself, and then go right to Virtua.

We went, pretty darn scared, and baby still wasn't moving. We got checked in and we were put in what we found out later was a high-risk labor & delivery room. The doctor explained that they had to do bloodwork to make sure her placenta was still intact, and then monitor baby's heartrate and my contractions for 4 hours and make sure we both were having normal patterns. If we were, we'd be discharged. If not, we'd be induced! ACK!

They hooked me up to the monitors and after a few tense minutes of trying, we found Baby D.'s heartbeat, and she sounded good. Her activity level picked up a little while later, and from then on she looked great on the monitor. She was very responsive, and looked neurologically very good. I was having mild contractions, some I didn't feel at all, and some which were, uh, quite "noticeable". We're getting close now, so that's totally normal. The bloodwork came back fine from the lab, and we were cleared to go home after the 4 hours were up.

We were discharged around 9PM with instructions and an 'everybody's ok'. And strict orders to stay off slippery floors in socks.

So Bob and I got a nice little dress rehearsal for the real deal. Once we knew we were fine, it was actually nice to hear her heartbeat, see all the equipment, and get comfortable with the whole hospital environment.

And that was our eventful evening. All's well, just wanted to update. Today I plan to take it easy and couch it a good bit - still pretty sore.