This is why we shouldn't live in the desert!

Well, some of you may have already heard about the frightful night we had last Thursday (a little over a week ago). I was restlessly sleeping in bed (a result of multiple mosquito bites had me tossing and turning), when all of a sudden a painful bite woke me. I jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom to try to see what had happened - this was at 2 a.m. My hand was stinging, on fire, and generally feeling like something was very wrong.

I went back into the bedroom to wake Chris. I gave him the quick rundown after flipping on the light - something had bitten me, it hurt badly, and I thought we should find what it was in case it was poisonous. I started sifting through pillows on the floor, thinking whatever it was had likely gotten flung from the bed when I jumped out. Chris, still in bed, pulled the covers back on my side to look on the bed.

And there it was - a 2 inch long scorpion, still alive, chillin in bed with us!!! OMG! NOT what you want to wake up to, especially at 6 months prego. We immediately went into crisis mode - me jumping on the Internet to see how harmful the sting could be to me and the baby, Chris grabbing some kitchen utensils to go on a scorpion hunt in the bed.

Good news:

• The sting would not hurt the baby


• I was fine, just in some pain


• We got to "trial run" the 24-hour emergency answering service for my OB - and he called me back within 5 minutes - a complete success


• My OB gave me good advice that was supported by the ER staff

Bad news:

• We had to spend 2 hours in the ER at 3 a.m.


• My hand hurt (and I was still itchy from the mosquito bites)


• We are now petrified of a repeat performance and another late night visitor (although we both realize the likelihood of this happening again is slim)

Here is a picture of the creepy thing, outside our house the next day. After Chris killed it he left it on our sidewalk so I could capture a photo to remember him by.

So needless to say, we hope to never go through that again. The weird thing is, we have never even seen a bug inside the house before - no spiders, crickets (which scorpions eat), etc. So why this guy turned up is beyond me.

We now have a new nighttime routine - brush teeth, turn off light, get out blacklight and search the room - scorpions glow under a blacklight so this is a sure-fire way to catch them!