Bed Rest: Day 5

My last post regarding pregnancy I talked about a few of my favorite things on July 28^th. I didn’t actually give any updates on my pregnancy, but I will now. Several things have changed since then. For one thing, August has FLOWN by!! Can you believe it? I keep double checking myself when I write or say the date because I just cannot believe we are more than half way through August…Wow! Another change is that I am on bed rest.. Yes, that’s right. You read it right. I have been ordered to full on, hard core bed rest. No driving (except to my doctor’s appointments), no cooking, no cleaning, no swimming, nothing! I have bathroom and showering privileges and that’s about it…Well, except for the fact that I am a stay home at mom to a very energetic toddler who also needs to potty, eat and play. I've seen the writing on the wall for this for quite some time. I’ve been having contractions since about June, so fortunately I've gotten the bulk of the preparations done for the baby's arrival.

My doctor put me on bed rest Friday afternoon. She told me my guideline for calling her or going to the hospital in regards to contractions was 4 intense or 6 less intense contractions in one hour. Sunday night I had five contractions in a matter of one hour and fifteen minutes. Some of the contractions were intense, some were mild... I was really tired as these took place between 10:45 pm and 12:15am. I told D what was going on and I said if I have one more contraction I will call my doctor and/or head the hospital... Well, the contractions must have subsided because I fell asleep. I called my doctor about it in the morning. She checked me at her office then sent me straight to the hospital because I am dilated and thinning (I’ll spare you too many ghoury details)... The short story is that I stayed in the hospital overnight for observation and for steroid injections that will accelerate the rate at which the baby's lungs develop. The doctors think that if I am diligent and very mindful about being on bed rest we can milk things along and get four more weeks out of this pregnancy. At this point they believe the baby will be born around 37 weeks. If I have any more "episodes" similar to Sunday night in which I have 4-6 contractions in one hour, I could potentially return to the hospital for observation and more meds....We'll see.

In the meantime, D and I are adjusting to this new “lifestyle.” D has been great to do the bulk of the housework, cooking, grocery shopping, etc. We have lots of friends and family offering to help out by making meals, watching N, grocery shopping, taking N to school and on and on. We are actually taking people up on as many offers as we can because we need the help. As I was telling D last night…being on bed rest for what could be four weeks is like being in a marathon. I told him that we need to take people up on their offers so we…or mainly he doesn’t get worn out by trying to everything on our own. We’ve already had friends bring us meals, one friend went to Kmart for me and brought in our garbage cans while she was here today. It’s so amazing what people are willing to do to help out. We are soooo grateful to everyone for your concerns and your help!! We’ll keep you posted!