Is The Tide Turning?

I have just a few minutes for a quick post tonight after quite the busy day. (And if you’re wondering ‘how can a day be “busy” on bedrest?’ well, that’s a post for another time! Sometimes I think it is three times as busy on bedrest as it is not on bedrest. It’s just a very different kind of busy. And it’s definitely three times more complicated!)

Anyway. . . my 32-week appointment!

Amazingly, I am still 1 cm!  I really couldn’t believe it.

Over the past few weeks, the idea at every appointment (or triage visit or hospital stay) has been ‘let’s see how we can manage these contractions and try to keep the baby inside as many more days as we can.’  Today the tone of my appointment was completely different. We’re not talking days now, we’re talking weeks. In fact, Dr. Z told me she was optimistic that if my “cervix continues to behave, maybe we can make it to week 37!”

This is the first talk of “week 37.” This is the first time the obs have discussed coming off bedrest, progesterone or procardia.

This is a stage I never experienced with Micah. With Micah’s pregnancy, we knew he would be premature, it was just a matter of how premature. I never asked about coming off bedrest or procardia–I clung to them as the only hope for keeping my child inside–growing stronger and staying healthy.

So mentally, this is a shift for me.

Someone from church wrote to ask what help we could use with meals and childcare, so Daniel asked me to write up a schedule for the next four weeks (Four weeks!) of who is helping which days and determine when we have gaps.

Today we found out that Daniel’s boss granted permission to work from home two days/week, which will be a huge blessing. But obviously he will technically still be working, right? so it would still be best for me to have some help for a couple of hours on those days.

We’re working the schedule out.

I told my Due Date Buddy Donna that we should team up and write a book: On Surviving Bedrest. 🙂 Maybe in four weeks I’ll have this thing figured out. Ha!

That said, I have to be careful. I’m feeling so encouraged, but I need to remember how much worse my contractions were before bedrest and procardia. There are no guarantees.

But I am starting to imagine what it’s like to room with your baby after she’s born, to nurse her right away, to bring her home when you leave the hospital. . . it all seems a bit too good to be true! I think I may need to pack a diaper bag and have the carseat ready!

For now, I’m just taking one day at a time. On bedrest. For the Little Boo.

But I’m asking myself, is the tide turning? Is this the week where we begin to see a marked difference between my pregnancy with Little Q (Micah) and my pregnancy with Little Boo? . . . only time will tell.