Surviving Bed Rest

I've written extensively about my pregnancy and Nick's birth story, but I wanted to write today about the 11 weeks I spent on bed rest with Mr. Nick (I also thought you would enjoy the break from updates about my son's pooping problems and swollen testicle :) ).

My first version of modified bed rest began when I was 11 weeks pregnant, following my first major bleed and trip to the ER. An ultrasound later revealed that the cause of my sudden bleeding was a Subchorionic Hematoma (SCH.) My doctor wasn't overly concerned about the SCH, as it is a relatively common pregnancy condition. Usually (emphasis on usually,) women will experience one bleeding episode in the first trimester, but by the 20 week ultrasound, the SCH will have healed naturally and the mother will go on to experience a totally normal pregnancy. But, since the SCH does slightly increase the risk of a miscarriage, I was put on what is known as pelvic rest. This meant no heavy lifting, no exercise, no sex, etc, and just taking it easy in general, until my 20 week ultrasound.

In a way, pelvic rest was more challenging than actual bed rest. I was still teaching at this point, which meant I was working 40+ hours a week and was on my feet all day. I tried my best to sit as often as possible (which was a rarity even when I was making the effort to since I taught third grade,) and did little things, like calling on students to pass out supplies or carry books for me. My teaching team and principal were wonderful, and let me get away with things like covering my recess duty so I could have an extra 25 minutes to relax with my feet up (my partner teacher even gave me a rolling crate to pull around so I wouldn't have to carry my teacher bag on my shoulder.)

The biggest challenge of pelvic rest was avoiding picking up Graham. My husband travels constantly for work, and is usually gone at least one night per week, but often more like 1-4 nights. He tried his best to work his schedule so he could be the one to lift Graham into his carseat and put him in his crib at night, but there were many times when he just had to be out of state for business and I couldn't avoid lifting Graham. To be honest, I did make a general effort to take it easy, but with lessons plans and assignments to grade, 20+ students to teach, meals to cook, a house to take care of, and two children of my own who needed baths, clean clothes, etc, there was only so much I could avoid doing. Besides, no one-including my doctor-could have ever predicted my pregnancy would have turned out like it did, so I didn't worry too much about limiting my activities.

Official bed rest began following bleed #2, which happened the week before Thanksgiving. This bleed led to my first appointment with maternal fetal medicine. The doctor concluded the SCH was the culprit behind this bleed, and, even though this was my second major bleed in six weeks, the MFM doctor still expected the SCH to heal and my pregnancy to continue like normal. He recommended a week of bed rest to nudge my body along, but he agreed that I could return to work the following week, but remain on pelvic rest.

This first bout of bed rest honestly wasn't bad. Everyone expected this to be my only week of bed rest, and at this point, I still had work to keep me busy and Christmas movies to watch. Three days after leaving the hospital, I experienced bleed #3. This incident is one of the mysteries of my pregnancy which was never explained, because I suddenly experienced an intense pain near where my right ovary is (so severe that I threw up in the driveway on the way to the hospital, and again at Labor and Delivery.) It was the same pain I experienced the night of my mild placental abruption, expect the second time, it was in the lower left side of my back and MUCH more painful. Anyways, this led to another week of bed rest. This was bad timing, as it was the week of Thanksgiving and Cory and I were planning to host our family Thanksgiving at our house for the first time. I felt guilty, because not only was Cory doing literally all of the parenting duties in addition to his actual job, but he was now having to clean our house, do all the Thanksgiving shopping, and make several dishes as well. It was such an uncomfortable feeling that would become familiar during my time on bed rest: not being able to help Cory at all made me feel so lazy and guilty. Cory never got frustrated or blamed me, because 1. Bed rest was for the safety of our child, and 2. I couldn't help it, but still, it was a hard feeling to internalize.

As you know, I went back to work after Thanksgiving, but two weeks later, I was back in the hospital with bleed #4. At this point, because I bled heavily for a full week and my SCH continued to get bigger, my MFM (who later acknowledged he was expecting me to go into labor that week,) recommended being on bed rest until Nick was born. Because it was my first year teaching at my school and I was new to the district, I did not qualify for FMLA (disability coverage,) so at that meant I had to leave my job completely. This was hard for me, but I had so much guilt that I had missed so many days with my kiddos and I knew I wasn't giving them the stability and consistency that they needed.

When I was in the hospital, our MFM doctor had given us a 50% chance of making it to 32 weeks, and had said it was a matter of when, not if, I would go on hospital bed rest in 2018 because of bleeding. In hindsight, this was helpful, because everyone was more or less prepared for me to deliver early, but at 22 weeks, it made it hard to sleep. Since all except for bleed #3 and the big one that would cause Nick's birth, all of my bleeding occurred in the middle of the night, and I would wake up to find my pajama pants soaked in blood. I usually am a heavy sleeper and never have problems going to sleep, but I kept waking up feeling sick and anxious, expecting to find blood. My doctor recommended taking melatonin, as it is a natural way to encourage better sleep, but I never ended up using it because I more or less got used to the anxiety. I spent the next 8 weeks on bed rest until, in February, three days before Nick was born, following bleed #5, our MFM doctor told me I had finally had too many bleeding episodes, and would need to stay in the hospital until I delivered. This ended up being the decision that saved Nick's life, because if I hadn't been steps away from the OR when I had the complete abruption, Nick likely wouldn't have survived.

Though I was far from the ideal bed rest patient, I wanted to share some tips about how I got through my total of 11 weeks on bed rest:

1. AVOID GOOGLE. Lord knows I was not good at this. I had never heard of a placental abruption before, and, when you're sitting on the couch all day worrying about the condition that is causing you to be on the couch, it is so hard to avoid searching google to try and learn more. If you've ever googled "placental abruption stories," "consequences of a SCH," or "what does an ultrasound of a placental abruption look like," you know that 95% of the information on the internet comes from other worried women trying to learn about their conditions. There is a lot of "my doctor said" and "I heard that," but there is so little actual legitimate information. Even the websites that seemed legitimate weren't necessarily helpful either, because it was general information and not tailored to my specific unusual case. Though I did learn more than I ever needed to about the functions of a placenta, reading obsessively about the ways a placental abruption can end just gave me awful anxiety. As hard as it is, try to stick to advice coming from an actual medical professional. I asked my OB and MFM doctors question after question during our appointments, but since my case was so unusual, their answers were usually just to wait and see what my body would do. This leads to...

2. Try to relax. Again, easier said than done, especially when the well being of your child is at stake. When sitting on the couch, I thought every ache and pain was my body going into labor, especially because I would often have cramps (my doctor explained this was probably because of the amount of blood I had in my uterus.) I either had a ultrasound or an appointment with my OB or MFM doctor every week, and I would usually be pretty nervous about what the doctors would find. Since these appointments were my big event of the week, it was hard not to place a lot of importance on them.

3. Stay busy and try to enjoy it! Being on bed rest before Thanksgiving and Christmas was definitely an inconvenience, even though my kids did get some awesome Christmas presents since I had so much time to peruse Amazon prime and different online stores. By January, when I was no longer working, it was hard to stay busy since I no longer had school to work on. But, I figured I would hopefully never have time like this to sit and do nothing, so I tried to enjoy it. I read for fun (which I usually only do in the summers,) and did different little things that I never would have had time for, like dating and organizing all my pictures into photo albums. I'm very type A, and it's hard for me to just sit and not do anything, so I tried to make lists every day to make me feel like I was accomplishing something.

4. Ask for help. This is another thing I'm not good at. We relied on our parents so much during my time on bed rest, but often, especially when my husband had to travel, we just had to have someone to help. When I was in the hospital, my parents, who live locally, would pick up Annabelle and Graham so that Cory could visit me, or would make Cory and the kids dinner, take the kids to school, etc. Again, I hated having to be so dependent on someone else to help care for my children, but I just couldn't do anything about it. Try to remember that bed rest is not a choice, and it's for the well being of your baby!

I hope this helps! Thanks for reading! :)