Baby's first hostage standoff

So when our newsroom intern and I were sent out on assignment yesterday to cover an incident at a government center about a half-hour away, we had no idea it was a hostage situation at a county board meeting until we were already on the road.

Fabulous.

I'm 5 months pregnant and heading towards a potentially dangerous situation. With an 18-year-old girl. I'm pretty sure Dr. Spock wouldn't recommend that for the baby OR our intern. Fortunately, we found out a short time later that the hostage siege was over and the man had been killed by law enforcement.

We still got ourselves shooed out of two different areas surrounding the building by men armed with AK-47s until we found the designated media sidewalk. We waited for a couple of hours, along with three other co-workers, until I could no longer remain standing in the 85-degree sunshine with a full bladder, so the intern and I took off in search of cold refreshments for the crew and a bathroom stall for me. After another couple hours on the sidewalk, with news helicopters circling overhead, we decided to split up and our intern and I interviewed some random people in the town and headed to the McDonald's in search of food for our now starving crew.

Then my car wouldn't start in the parking lot. Hard to cover breaking news with a broken down Camry. But after several attempts at starting my car it finally gave in and decided to start (fortunately) on the 15th or so try and third trip to the car. We headed back to the office having missed the second news conference because we were stuck at the McDonald's. Bummer.

When I got home my face was badly sunburned and the baby kept doing somersaults inside me, my stomach became tense almost like I was having contractions. I got a little worried — maybe the baby had too much excitement and stress for one day — but she calmed down after a half-hour.

And things have been going well so far since then.

I have started reading aloud to her before bed and she wiggles around a lot to the sound of my voice. I've heard I can grow a smart kid that way, so hey, it can't hurt. I'll hold off reading her today's story about the man shot by police after holding 10 people hostage — that's old news to my lil' bambino — and stick with Dr. Seuss.