Update: A Comedy of Errors

Yesterday I called the doctor's office and they didn't get back to me in time for me to make it to the office before it closed so I had to go to Howard County General Hospital for the tests. Once I got there I had to register and then head up to labor and delivery where they had a room & nurse all ready for me. I had to put on a hospital gown and get into bed where the nurse hooked me up to the fetal heart monitor and got me ready for the fetal non-stress test. It was so nice to hear that little heartbeat and after that I was instantly put at ease. He wasn't really moving according to the fetal non-stress test so I had to drink some apple juice which got him going a little, then drink some caffinated soda (for medicinal purposes only) and he moved a little, then I had to eat peanut butter Ritz cracker's and he must have a little bit of his Pappy in him because he went crrrazzzzy over those crackers! By this point Stan had arrived at the hospital and I had been there roughly 2 hours. I was told to rest while the doctor was paged (Dr. Davis) and he will let us know. We sat there for about an hour when we couldn't hear the heartbeat anymore--little guy was being all tricky and moved away from the monitor. Then he was all over my belly trying to avoid having the monitor put back on. It took the nurse 6 minutes to find him again and when she did she hooked me back up and I was told not to move. I had to sit there and hold my bladder for so long. The doctor called back finally and said that I could not leave the hospital without a biophysical profile (sonogram). So the nurse had to page the sonographer who had already gone home for the day so we had to wait while she came back to the hopital.
Finally the nurses shift changed (thank God because I didn't like that other nurse at all in fact she said "She's your problem now" to the next nurse) and I got a nice new nurse. She was so cool and went through everything with me. I kept telling her how bad I felt that I was even there because he was probablly just getting a lot of rest and that was why he was so inactive. She told me that we were lucky to have the results that we got because she sees mothers who ignore the lack of movement who come in too late so I felt way better about being there and choosing the get monitored.
The sonographer came in around 8 o'clock and the biophysical profile took roughly around an hour. The sonographer said we missed 2 of the 8 criteria to leave the hospital. When they gave Dr. Davis the results he said he needed to know the 2 criteria we did not meet before we could be released so the sonographer was paged again (since she had already left the hospital). She had to come back in and fax the results to the nurse. Well you gotta love technology because not only did it take another hour for her to get there but there was no ink in the fax machine so we were waiting waiting waiting while the answer was just sitting there inside the machine. Finally at like 11:00 the RN realizes that there is nothing printing so she fixes the fax machine and came in to let Stan and I know what happened and that the 2 criteria that we didn't fit was revolving around practice breathing which he is too young to do at this stage so it was basically a non-issue. So the nurse called Dr. Davis who then said I wasn't able to leave until the doctor came in and discharged me which took another half an hour.
Finally I was discharged at 11:45 and Stan and I could get some dinner (we were both tired and hungry). I had been there since 4:45 so I was just there a little too long for my sanity. But everyone was great and I had to keep reminding myself that all this hold up was in the best interest of the baby which has given me so much faith in my pracitioners.