Car Accident and our Friday spent in L&D

Because I know a lot of people have questions, I am going to give everyone a quick rundown of what happened yesterday. Let me say first and foremost that it was a small thing that got way overblown.

On my way home from breakfast with a friend I was rear-ended by a blonde chick who looked about my age. She wasnt going very fast and there was minimal damage to both our cars. Although I felt just fine, I made the decision to get checked out at the hospital in case the jolt had caused any damage to me or the baby. Matt left work and got there right after I had checked in. They monitored me and baby and everything looked great. She was even moving even more than usual! The nurse said that if she were in distress that she wouldnt be moving at all, so that wasnt an issue. A few contractions did show up on the monitor so the doctor chose to give me Terbutaline, which stops pre-term labor. This was done as a simply precautionary measure of course.

Then we were taken downstairs to do an ultrasound to look at the uterine wall and make sure the placenta was ok etc. Everything looked good- they told me she was measuring at 6 pounds 10 oz! Which I have been advised to take with a grain of salt, but she has consistently been in the 70-80th percentile my entire pregnancy. They also said that the ultrasound was giving them a due date of Sept. 11th (rather than the 23rd), so thats interesting- but may not mean anything.

Then we waited a reeeally long time for the doctor to show up to talk to us and give us another ultrasound because she wanted to check my amniotic fluid levels, which appeared low from the first U/S. By then it was 6:30 and we had been there for six hours, so we werent exactly happy campers. The nurse told us that if the doctor wasnt happy with the fluid levels that I would be kept overnight on IV fluids and they may chose to induce labor to get her out if it hadn't improved. However, the doctor finally showed up and said that although the fluid was a little low, that she was able to get a few good "pockets" and I could go home.

So yeah, big hairy deal over tiny little fender bender- but I guess it had to happen. However I did learn out of all of this that I hate being in the hospital and I especially hate people knowing I am in there. It's way more personal of an experience than I expected it to be. So when I actually go in to labor, I believe we will be telling people on a need-to-know basis in order to keep my stress levels down. I hope I dont offend anyone in this decision and I hope you can understand and respect my feelings on this. There will be plenty of opportunity to visit our little one afterwards!

Thank you and I love you all!
Catherine