My trip to L&D...no, not for the tour

So today I was sitting at my desk and happened to look down at my feet. My ankles were swollen. No biggie I thought, so I loosened my shoes and realized that something was wrong. They were really swollen, more so than when I tore a ligament and fractured a bone a few months ago.
Well seeing as I work in the #1 hospital in the world, and I work for nurse educators, one of them stopped by as I had my shoe off and asked to see my foot. She poked at it and the grossest thing happened. you ever see the commercials for the foam mattresses, the ones where you press down and you hand print stays there for a few seconds? That's what the skin on my foot was doing! EWWWW.
It didn't hurt, it was just so disgusting. She said it looked like +1 pitting edema, apparently there are 4 stages and I had a mild case. She suggested I call my doctor and let her know what was going on as swelling with edema can be a sign of preecemplesia. I called her office and was told that since they close at 2 (it was 1:30) that I should go to L&D at my delivery hospital and get checked out.
I'm not too worried at this point but she says that it's pretty early in my pregnancy for me to be having such a noticeable swelling issue. My next call was to my husband since I wasn't about to go off to the hospital by myself! He was a little peeved that I wanted him to go...but he eventually gave in and came to get me.
We went to the hospital and headed up to L&D. I had to check in at the registration office and the lady need to verify my information. She asked the usually questions...name, SSN, DOB, address, etc. Then she says "Religion?". I was like "what? religion? um...none..." She asks me again and I try to find a nice way to say that I do not associate myself with any particular religion when my hubby chimes in "non-denominational"...to which she says "are you Catholic?"!!!
I reply no and explain that I do not have a religion. She seemed confused and continued on with the paperwork. My hubby is a little more interested in what all the questions are at this point and wants to know if they do this for everyone who comes to see a doctor. She doesn't really give an answer and has me sign a consent to treatment form and go wait in the hall for a triage nurse. It's now 3:45pm. After sitting for about 5 min, a nurse takes us to the waiting room where we watch the end of Judge Joe Brown. My husband is questioning why they just admitted me and I am pretty sure that they didn't. He's concerned about if insurance is going cover this under pre-natal care or not. Since he refuses to go ask someone why I need to wait for a bed, I decide to find the ladies room. I go to the desk and asked the nurse where it is, she shows me and gives me a specimen cup since they'll need a sample. I asked her why I had to wait for a bed and she explains about the procedure. Basically for anyone 20+ weeks pregnant they go to L&D instead of the ER. I am going to be seen my a nurse and have my vitals taken and the baby monitored. My response was that this is basically "the pregnant ER" and she said yeah. That explains the registration and waiting procedure. They didn't admit me and weren't waiting for an actual room...just a triage bed where they could get a better look at what was going on. I collected my 'sample' and headed back to the waiting room. After 2 episodes of Judge Judy we were called back to a triage room. I was told to put on a gown and lay back. The nurse recorded my vitals and the baby's heartbeat before hooking my up to a monitor to check for contractions...which I of course wasn't having. All my stats were normal. She said that the mid-wife on call would be in to check my feet and I would be able to leave soon.
Since the contraction monitor was still on me my hubby was intrigued by all the equipment and realized that when I laughed, the monitor spiked! He found it amusing to try and make the line spike. We eventually asked the nurse and 100 is the highest it goes when you are in labor. This wasn't info that my hubby needed to hear since I can just see him saying "that was only an 80...stop complaining". We all had a good laugh about the fact that he'll be paying lots of attention to that thing when I go into labor.
After awhile the mid-wife came and looked me over. She said that my swelling is normal and I should cut down on my salt intake, drink plenty of fluids, and try to walk around as much during the day as possible. If I have to sit for awhile, I should elevate my feet. She obviously doesn't know where I work...I had to go through a bunch of red tape just to be able to wear sneakers during the day...even after my doctor wrote a note telling me to.
I was discharged and left the hospital just about 6pm.

I didn't even get to see a real delivery room. Guess I'll have to take the tour after all.