A Contribution by Reagan Wilda. For more information see Reagan’s section on this website.
As the girls first birthdays approach, only two short months away, I find myself looking at the calendar a lot these days and asking myself “where were we this time last year?” Like I have mentioned before, pregnancy was nothing like I had imagined. Although things could not have turned out better, with two happy healthy babies, I can’t help but feel like I was slightly robbed of having the pregnancy I had dreamed about since deciding to have a baby. I had always imagined being one of those pregnant women who ate whatever she wanted, took yoga, walked everyday and got the chance to go out and show off her magnificent pregnant belly. I was looking forward to decorating the nursery and what every mother to be dreams about, her baby shower. But as you already know, that is not how my pregnancy went, at all.
Looking back I realized early on I had preconceived ideas of having an easy, if not perfect first trimester. So my husband and I decided around six weeks into the pregnancy that we were going to surprise my step daughter with a trip to Disney World. What seemed like a good idea at the time, a week later at the onset my morning sickness, turned out was not such a good idea after all. After three days of walking around the park nauseous and completely worn out from the start of many other unpleasant symptoms, I swore when we left, that I never wanted to see Mickey Mouse or his entourage again. For whatever reason in my mind, Mickey had become the enemy and I couldn’t get away fast enough!
Once we returned home from our trip, I found refuge in my bed. Morning sickness had taken over my life and the only relief I found was hoping that it would eventually pass. I had done a lot of reading and I was sure that after the first trimester things would turn around. I still had visions of the perfect pregnancy, it was just a little delayed that’s all. At this point I still believed I was only having one baby. I was completely unaware of what was ahead of us. It wouldn’t be long though before we would find out the big news that we were having twins! Getting the news is a whole other story , one I will share eventually. Regardless of how we found out, with the big news came the very real fact that it wasn’t going to be an easy pregnancy after all. Instead of yoga and nursery decorating, I was going to have to figure out how to manage spending the next several months on bed rest. At the end of the first trimester, when things were expected to be looking up, complications and the doctor’s concerns of preterm labor required me to stay on almost complete bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy.
I will admit that until the end of the pregnancy I was certainly fortunate to be allowed certain “privileges” while on bed rest. This meant I while I had to spend a majority of time in bed, I was allowed to shower, move around the house or hospital room (only when necessary) and go to doctors appointments. Being on bed rest wasn’t so hard in the beginning because the truth was that I didn’t feel well enough to do anything anyway. Yet, the problem was still that the only thing I had time to do was think and even worse worry about my babies. It seemed that every doctor’s appointment came with more bad news and with all of the time I had to think, I had envisioned every scary scenario in my head. The days blended into the nights and time itself seemed to slow down. I slept when I was tired, which was often but when I didn’t sleep I would think. There seemed to be no easy way to distract myself from the scary thoughts in my head. I remember sitting in bed rubbing my belly just praying that my girls would make it just one more week. I knew every week was a huge success but the problem was that most weeks felt like an eternity. Eventually I would spend the remainder of my pregnancy in the hospital, and although it provided me with a change of scenery it also presented me with new emotional challenges.
To sum it all up, there was no yoga, no shopping, and no showing off my magnificent pregnant belly and there was even no baby shower. Despite all the disappointments, I can honestly say that when I ask myself “where were we this time last year” I quickly realize that it doesn’t matter because of where we are now. I’m not going to pretend to have words of wisdom or something insightful to say about spending your pregnancy on bed rest. It wasn’t easy, and if I had to do it again it wouldn’t be any easier. But the fact is I survived it and more importantly my babies survived because of it!
