What Bed Rest for Two Months Is Like, Part II: I Make Fun of My Mother's Videos

I take a drug called Nifedipine, which is usually used to treat high blood pressure, but for me is key in stopping contractions. I set an alarm to take it every three hours, eight times a day. Just to be safe, at night I set two alarms. In addition because of my gestational diabetes, I check my blood sugar when I wake up and an hour after every meal. That means more alarms. I LIVE by alarms now. My sleeping hours are interrupted by a combination of niphedipine alarms every three hours and waking up to pee every one to two hours (the twins don't give my bladder much space). It feels like this is just preparation for what sleep will be like with two newborns.

All I hear any more...

I also have to do contraction checks twice a day for an hour each time. This actually started before I was ever in the hospital as part of a program to identify labor-inducing contractions and prevent pre-term labor in moms carrying multiples. Contraction checks involve lying on your side while you feel your belly with your hand. A hardening of the uterus is a Braxton Hicks contraction, and they often don't even involve pressure or pain. Contractions are okay (and normal as the pregnancy progresses) but it's of concern if there are too many within an hour or if they're at set intervals. (Thank goodness each of the three times I may have started to go into labor I noticed the contractions right away!) Then I log the number of contractions in that hour in my contraction diary. (This is in addition to my gestational diabetes blood sugar log.) Someone from the "contraction hotline" calls me once a week to record all the contraction totals. I'm not completely sure why.)

"Dear contraction diary... Zombie gynecologist is so dreamy..."

So two hours of my day is spent lying down with my hand on my belly feeling for contractions. Thankfully my doctor told me yesterday I could stop because all they care about now are the stronger ones. All I can do during that time is talk on the phone and watch TV. I often talk to Mark's mom or my mom, who also likes to send me awful Mork and Mindy videos of the episodes where Mork has a baby. I definitely run out of shows to watch. I pick ones I don't watch with Mark, so it's been a lot of Say Yes to the Dress, America's Next Top Model, Survivor, and Models of the Runway. (Don't judge!) Also, I watch reality show analysis on video on Entertainment Weekly's website. (Twins, if you're reading this in the future, I know you now think your mommy is brain dead.)

I know it's hard to believe but Jonathan Winters playing Mork and Mindy's child who ages in reverse does not hold up well.

Did The Curious Case of (Why No One Edited) Benjamin Button steal their central idea from Mork and Mindy but make it creepier?

I also have to sit or lie down to see how long it takes to feel ten fetal movements. It usually doesn't take too long. In the morning you can literally see my belly rolling around from the twins moving. It's not as weird as this video from my mom. (Don't worry, it's not Mork and Mindy.)

What Bed Rest for Two Months Is Like, Part I: What Happened to Autumn?

I've been on bed rest for two months now. It's weird not experiencing the entire season of autumn, or weather at all for that matter. I feel like Haley Joel Osment in A.I. (not that I saw it), asking "What is love?'


"What is autumn?"
"Autumn is real, but he is not."

Most people assume that I'm bored. I'm not-- well, not exactly... The hardest part is being isolated and not seeing people, not going outside, and not having the freedom to move at will. I definitely appreciate when friends come over.

When Mark is home he prepares all my meals and snacks and leaves a pitcher of water for me for the day. Sometime he leaves me a squeaky toy filled with treats which I can bat around to release tasty morsels. It's frustrating not being able to do things for myself, not being able to get the twins' room ready, and not being able to organize and clean the house.

I've had two different types of best rest. Thankfully both included bathroom and shower privileges as well as sitting in a chair to eat. When I was discharged from the hospital for the first time in mid-October, I was on "take it easy" bed rest. I was told to lie down 80% of the time, but Female Asian Doogie said I could also do things that made me happy, like go out to dinner or visit friends (as long as I was resting after I arrived). I didn't want to overdo it and only left the house about twice a week. I was concerned enough about overdoing it that we even wrote an offer on a house I never saw. (Female Asian Doogie recommended bed rest but also said it has yet to be proven to be effective. I will not be a happy camper if in ten years bed rest is definitively found not to help.)

After my latest hospital stint, I was given stricter bed rest. My doctor said I could still microwave simple meals like before, but I really should only move minimally. And I was not to leave the apartment except for appointments. Since being on bed rest I really appreciate just being outside in the car and taking the usual streets to go to the doctor. Until two days ago, when I had back-to-back doctor and ultrasound appointments, I hadn't left the apartment in a week and a half. And the next time I leave it'll either be to see the doc or because I'm going into labor.

I have two lying down spots at home - the bed and the sofa - and especially now I try to stay in each for several hours before moving to the next. That means constantly planning out what I need and then transporting my cell phone, home phone, drugs, glass of water, snack, etc. whenever I want to move between spots. Most of the time I'm on the bed where the laptop is. Unfortunately lying down means I only have one hand free for the computer which in turn means I have to hunt and peck to type. It can be exhausting. On the sofa I'm usually watching TV or going through baby clothes to write down who gave me what.

Being immobile for two months takes its toll on the body. Obviously you take in calories and have no way to burn them off (hello, Kathy beached whale). Interestingly enough, I actually lost about five pounds the frst stay in the hospital and a couple more in the second, just from muscle atrophy. Now I get tired and breathe hard just changing rooms (or turning over - again, slowly like a beached whale). Because of all the lying down, my feet and legs don't get swollen like other pregnant women, but now my hands do. For the same reason my eyes are constantly puffy.

The way I'm cooped up I feel like a piece of veal.

Next Time (Don't Worry It Gets Better)... Part II: I Make Fun of My Mother's Videos

Pre-Term Labor Scare Part III: Food, Dogs, and Evil Contraction Monitors

I was hooked up to fetal heart monitors once a day. They were supposed to be on for an hour, but the babies moved so much that it took at least an hour and a half, once three hours, and I was to move as little as possible during that time (lest the babies fall off the monitors). They also hooked me up to contraction monitors twice a day for an hour each. It was really nerve-wracking to here the skritch skritch of the needle of the monitor recording contractions on paper like a seismograph. Every time I heard a skritch I imagined it was a new contraction. (As it turned out, the noises weren't correlated to the contractions, but I only discovered this near the end of my stay after I'd already worried myself silly over it.)

My nemesis, the contraction monitor.

After several days in the hospital I started having non-labor inducing contractions (which are normal), but I was constantly worried that it meant I was going to go back into labor. It was very stressful and I cried at some point every day but one. On my first full day in the hospital, right after telling my mom why I was there, I was pretty upset. (It wasn't until later I found out that my mom and Mark's mom thought I was in my 24th week instead of my 26th from looking at this blog which I've been slow to update.) Anyway right then some therapy dogs happened by my room that really cheered me up. One was, Dante, a border collie/German shepherd mix who did all sorts of tricks; but I was more amused by Rubi, a Golden retriever whose tail kept thumping against my bed.

I didn't realize I could request therapy dogs to come by until my last day. Guess who's coming to my room every day after I give birth?

Because of all the nurse/doctor/monitor interruptions, being on hospital bed rest kept me busier than you might think. In my spare time I used a laptop to check websites and e-mail (but could only hunt and peck to type because I wasn't supposed to sit up) and watched TV shows that Mark had uploaded. I was very happy when my friends, Rachel, Lila, and Brendan visited, as well as our real estate agent (now that's dedication!).

The hospital food was both better and worse than you'd expect. The desserts were at the "better" end of that equation. Often, something like Salisbury Steak would arrive and, trying to be as non-annoying as possible, I'd ask if there were any other options. (Every meal seemed to come with a tasteless dinner roll - I started to make a fortress out of them - and Wheatsworth crackers, which Mark decided was the name of his British butler.) One day Lila and Brendan brought me Indian food and that was the best food I'd tasted in a week. A few times a nurse came by with Haagen Dazs bars. I stupidly turned one down the first day, but thankfully had one the night before fasting 12 hours for my diabetes test the next morning. (I didn't pass the test so it tasted all the better.) Often while eating my meals, I'd make fun of the default TV channel that consisted solely of soothing nature scenes and music.

Haagen Dazs bar, how can I say no to you...

Wheatsworth. You there. I say, my good man...

After a day in my new room I was told I could eventually be released to strict bed rest at home. Both moms volunteered to come help me at home if that happened. I took that as a good sign of my recovery, but I was also worried about being at home without physicians in case the bad labor-inducing contractions came back.

Mark was great the entire time. He went back to work but came to visit me every morning for two hours and again in the evening from when he left work until around midnight.


Next time...
Part IV: I Tunnel Out of the Hospital

Pre-Term Labor Scare Part II: Living in a Hospital for Over a Week

I was originally given a room intended for high risk pregnancies where I could deliver if necessary. I was on the strictest bed rest so I couldn't get up at all - even to use the bathroom. This meant that I got to discover the joys of bed pans. For those of you uninitiated into the joy of emptying your bowels into a plastic container, basically you form a human bridge over a small plastic tub, relieve yourself, and then stew in your own filth while you wait for the nurse to come back to wipe you. I actually would point out if I thought they missed a spot while wiping. Once when I was concerned that my over-full bladder might make the bed pan runneth over, the nurse left an extra bed pan and told Mark that he could switch them out if necessary. (Uh, no.)

Bed pan montage!

The next day I was given a new room, and let me tell you, it was really exciting just to get wheeled down the corridor to see something other than the confines of my old room. Thankfully this time I was given bathroom privileges which meant I got to stand for the first time in 36 hours. I was given a chair for showering.

Shower chair! Not sure why mine has the hole in the seat...

However, something new was added, leg irons. My calves were encased in wraps that squeezed in and out (much like blood pressure gauges) in order to prevent me from developing deep vein thrombosis. The wraps were plugged into the end of my bed so I always had to get unpluged just so I could get up to go to the bathroom. (Usually my calls to the nurse would go something like this: "Can you unshackle me? I need to pee.")

Me, my leg irons, and lots of random junk on my table.

Leg iron close-up! Mark painted my toenails a few weeks ago.

This new room was a post-delivery room, and included another chair-bed for Mark. He slept over the first two nights, but after that I told him to sleep at home, because it's really hard to sleep in a hospital. I was regularly awakened to:

• take drugs at least 3 times a night
• pee (being pregnant that's at least every 2 hours). Each time I had to call the nurse twice - once to unshackle me and then again to reshackle me.
• be alerted that the nurse shift was changing at 4:30 a.m. (the new nurse would come in and turn on the light to put her phone number on the dry erase board)
• talk to doctors who would start arriving at 6 a.m. to see how I was doing

Next time...
Part III: Food, Dogs, and Evil Contraction Monitors