10 weeks of bedrest

Hi everyone,

I wanted to wait for a major milestone to write. I reached 28 weeks. I also “celebrate” 10 weeks of bed rest this week too. Baby is doing cartwheels, but seems to love being in breech position most… and is especially active when people are talking to me (which means that it knows that TV voices are different from real people voices, and I think that is so cool).

The surgery has still been a miracle; I am doing better than before the surgery at this point. I am still monitoring for contractions, and they are getting more “painful” though they manage to ebb and flow enough that I have not had to take anything more substantial than ibuprofen… yet.

I will stop taking the ibuprofen on December 2nd; this is because at this point the medicine has been associated with heart problems in the baby… so it is best to stop it at this point. When I told my doctor that this was a great birthday present to me, she said “Don’t thank me yet! You will probably have to take something stronger.”

I managed to get a flu shot when there where still some available. Most people have heard how people love to touch the bellies of pregnant women, and I thought I was going to miss out on the experience of having that happening and knowing if I hated it or not. When I was filling out the forms, a woman reached over and touched my belly, which, truth be told, reduced me to tears… I still don’t know how I feel about it, but in a way, it was one of the coolest experiences, because it somehow was a public acknowledgement of my being pregnant, that I showed and it was recognizable.

I also had a terrible cold, mainly a head cold, but took cough syrup anyway, plus since I am taking ibuprofen, I couldn’t take Nyquil and such because they have Tylenol… so, I took Benadryl which kept me in a fog for a week. Thank goodness it is over, and that it did not really reach my lungs, apparently coughing uses the same muscles as labor… go figure.

I have reached a stage where I can’t see my feet if I look down, though I can still see them if I move a little forward… for some reason this is exciting to me. Bending over is out of the question too. I think that if I were able to move around and interact with people, that I would love being pregnant more than I do (even with the nausea I still have).

I have also had to deal with a wounded pet, my cat Hannibal (picture below), and getting him to a vet and home and taking care of him with all that is happening to him. He had ear mites so bad that he got an abscess from it. For a while I felt my maternal skills were lacking, but he and I are resting comfortably together and I can tell he doesn't hold it against me for letting his ear get so bad that it got an infection and... well, it got gross but I will save you from hearing just how gross.


Hannibal wanting to have bedrest after his ord"ear"al

Bed rest has been the strangest experience of my life. One would think that being resourceful while on bed rest would not be needed, but I can tell you it is. I can’t believe physicians put women in this position and don’t give us coping skills or strategies, not to mention the whole other plethora of things that women on bed rest go through.

Did you know that it took 6 weeks to even receive information about support groups? I was lucky that I had a computer and could research this on my own and managed to get the support group link after only two weeks, but I did this on my own. I have looked at all the pamphlets in the various doctor’s offices I visit and I have not seen a thing. And the shocker, for me at least, was that when I finally received something it was from the folks that do the monitoring service and it was in a book they gave, no one mentioned it. My OB was not aware of it, but she told me of another patient she had that is in a similar situation so I made sure she knew about it. I must admit, that I had a friend who is a nurse that read Prevention magazine that had a section on bed rest and, it appears I did manage to find the few resources out there, plus a couple more that weren’t. I am lucky I have been able to continue working, but I can only imagine all the other issues related to working and legalities that some women may face. With all the information and stuff they hand out in OB offices one would think they could manage to give women on bed rest something other than the bad news… Since we are not all Julia Roberts (who is also now on bed rest) and have her resources (not that this is really any easier for her), I want to see what I can do about this, it would be so easy to work with places like the March of Dimes, Sidelines, hospitals and doctors offices, to tell women what is out there, what they need to think about (everything is just no longer as available as when you could stand, walk and drive), what to tell friends, how to deal with visitors, how to get things done, how to buck up and ask for help (the hardest thing for me, and still is).

So in the spirit of my new skill set… Anyone want to help me with this next year? It is pretty much a matter getting a group of people together and seeing what we need to put into a resource manual, finding physicians and hospitals willing to work with us… any one have connections that could help?

Another thing is that if you have called or stopped by and I have just talked and talked, please know that I know I am doing this on some level (usually after the fact), and it is OK to tell me you have to leave, I won’t hold it against you, I promise.

Now, for the most exciting news… I have a new nephew... Jacob Ellis was born on October 15th. See the pictures of the precious angel below. I have been able to see him twice, and I hope that dotcom is as good as he is. pictures removed per second party request


I hope that everyone is doing well!

Blair