I had a lot of problems in the beginning with my contacts and gmail etc but got their in the end.
if you select menu, import/export, export to SD Card, select account (ur case phone) this then creates a vcf file in the top level of your card.
you could repeat the process above and import from SD Card into your googlemail (not tried this) or connect phone to pc, goto gmail contcts online and select import (need phone as removable disk)
i would be careful it sometimes appears that the formatting from the vcf is different to the phone contacts, which results in duplication of numbers, addresses etc in your contacts.
me personally i got fed up with this and once happy with gmail contacts wiped my phone contacts (still backing up to sd card occasionally)
good luck
