I am twenty-eight weeks pregnant and the normal pregnancy should go forty weeks. Throughout the whole pregnancy I have had problems and had to be on bed rest. Then about a month ago it got so bad that I had to be admitted into the hospital because I was in pre-term labor and that is where I have been ever since. So, here I am on hospital bed rest and all I am allowed to do is get up and go to the bathroom or take a shower all while being supervised either by a nurse or my husband. I can’t walk around or leave the room and until recently I didn’t even have internet access.
I had always thought bed rest sounded like a great thing. You get to lay around and do nothing, just relaxing all day and having a grand time, right? No, it is not like that at all. There is no rest to be had in the hospital, they come in to check on me, draw my blood, monitor me and the baby, do ultrasounds, and do all kinds of other testing all day and night long. I am treated not like a human being but like an incubator and they come in and do whatever they need to do, jerking my covers off and poking and prodding me, without ever asking me for my permission or giving any regards to my feelings.
Once I was told I had to stay here and in my bed I began to see how much I have to do that I can’t do now. To give just one example out of the many things; I need to get the house ready for the baby, we don’t even have his room set up yet. I also have become aware of just how helpless I am laying in here. I can’t get up and get myself a drink or a snack and I am to shy or feel too uncomfortable asking someone to do it for me. I can’t go outside and enjoy the day and suddenly I appreciate all of the things that I thought were mundane and considered to be chores before. Being locked in a little room and treated like an animal can really make you get depressed and crazy. Everything is a blur and the desire or energy to do anything productive or just anything at all slowly drains from me, just like they draw the blood out of my veins.
I have realized that I am a total control freak when it comes to my life and all control has now been taken away from me. I have never been the type of person to think I needed anyone else. I always thought I was alright by myself and never wanted to rely on anyone or anything else. I have always felt that I can not depend on anyone else and didn’t want to either. I thought I was the only one who could get things done and done right. Now I understand that I do need others. I need my husband and my family. I need my friends too. I am not the self sufficient wonder woman I always thought I was, and that is okay and probably something that I needed to learn in order to be a better person myself.
I have found out through this who my real friends are and who in my family really cares about me. I have seen who pretends and goes through the motions that they feel are their duties. I have become aware of the people who don’t even bother to pretend and the people who genuinely care and love me. The latter of these are few and far between and the rest are too numerous and inconsequential to even begin to make note of.
I have also discovered that letting go of the control I thought I had over everything and letting my husband take the reins and run the household, work, and take care of our family has been beneficial to both of us in many ways. While many would have crumbled or ran away from this overwhelmingly terrible situation we are in now, he has chosen to not only stay but to thrive through it all and every day he evolves into someone stronger, more confident, and more responsible than he was the day before. He has truly grown into an even more remarkable and amazing man than he already was through all of this. Many marriages would deteriorate or blow up through the stress of this and everything else (which is another story in itself) that we have been through. Our marriage has only grown stronger through each trial and our friendship and trust just continues to be built up daily. Every day he amazes me and I feel so fortunate to have him as my husband and the father of our beautiful little boy.
To sum up and sign off here, I just want to say; When you are in a bad situation if you can learn something from it and become a better person then no matter what you will triumph, and we are tenacious and triumphant through all of this!
